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AliJ^AIIAM    LINCOLN 


THE  llflRIRY 

OF  THE 

t'NiVEIiSliy  OF  ILLINOIS 


ABRAHAM   LINCOLX 


A  HISTORY 


BY  JOHN   G.  NICOLAY 
AND    JOHN    HAY 


VOLUME   ONE 


NEW   YORK 

THE   CENTURY   CO. 


Copyright,  1886  and  1890, 

by  John  G.  Nicolay 

and  John  Hay. 

Copyright  renewed,  1914, 
by  Helen  G.  Nicolay. 


PRINTED  IN   U.    S.   A. 


~x' 


TO   THE   HONOEABLE 

EGBERT  TODD  LINCOLN 

THIS   WOKK   IS   DEDICATED 

IN   TOKEN    OF 
A  LIFE-LONG  FRIENDSHIP 

AND   ESTEEM 


7 


1  4'''01 


AUTHORS'  PEEFACE 

A  GENERATION  born  since  Abraham  Lincoln  died 
has  already  reached  manhood  and  womanhood. 
Yet  there  are  millions  still  living  who  sympathized  with 
him  in  his  noble  aspirations,  who  labored  with  him  in  his 
toilsome  life,  and  whose  hearts  were  saddened  by  his 
tragic  death.  It  is  the  almost  unbroken  testimony  of 
his  contemporaries  that  by  virtue  of  certain  high  traits 
of  character,  in  certain  momentous  lines  of  purpose  and 
achievement,  he  was  incomparably  the  greatest  man  of 
his  time.  The  deliberate  j  udgment  of  those  who  knew  him 
has  hardened  into  tradition ;  for  although  but  twenty-five 
years  have  passed  since  he  fell  by  the  bullet  of  the 
assassin,  the  tradition  is  already  complete.  The  voice  of 
hostile  faction  is  silent,  or  unheeded;  even  criticism  is 
gentle  and  timid.  If  history  had  said  its  last  word,  if  no 
more  were  to  be  known  of  him  than  is  already  written, 
his  fame,  however  lacking  in  definite  outline,  however  dis- 
torted by  fable,  would  survive  undiminished  to  the  latest 
generations.  The  blessings  of  an  enfranchised  race  would 
forever  hail  him  as  their  liberator ;  the  nation  would  ac- 
knowledge him  as  the  mighty  counselor  whose  patient 
courage  and  wisdom  saved  the  life  of  the  republic  in  its 
darkest  hour;  and  illuminating  his  proud  eminence  as 

Ix 


X  authors'  preface 

orator,  statesman,  and  ruler,  there  would  forever  shine 
around  his  memory  the  halo  of  that  tender  humanity  and 
Christian  charity  in  which  he  walked  among  his  fellow- 
countrymen  as  their  familiar  companion  and  friend. 

It  is  not,  therefore,  with  any  thought  of  adding  mate- 
rially to  his  already  accomplished  renown  that  we  have 
written  the  work  which  we  now  offer  to  our  fellow-citizens. 
But  each  age  owes  to  its  successors  the  truth  in  regard 
to  its  own  annals.  The  young  men  who  have  been  bom 
since  Sumter  was  fired  on  have  a  right  to  aU  their  elders 
know  of  the  important  events  they  came  too  late  to  share 
in.  The  life  and  fame  of  Lincoln  will  not  have  their 
legitimate  effect  of  instruction  and  example  unless  the 
circumstances  among  which  he  lived  and  found  his 
opportunities  are  placed  in  their  true  light  before  the 
men  who  never  saw  him. 

To  write  the  life  of  this  great  American  in  such  a  way  as 
to  show  his  relations  to  the  times  in  which  he  moved,  the 
stupendous  issues  he  controlled,  the  remarkable  men  by 
whom  he  was  surrounded,  has  been  the  purpose  which 
the  authors  have  dOigently  pursued  for  many  years.  We 
can  say  nothing  of  the  result  of  our  labor;  only  those 
who  have  been  similarly  employed  can  appreciate  the 
sense  of  inadequate  performance  with  which  we  regard 
what  we  have  accomplished.  We  claim  for  our  work  that 
we  have  devoted  to  it  twenty  years  of  almost  unremitting 
assiduity;  that  we  have  neglected  no  means  in  our  power 
to  ascertain  the  truth ;  that  we  have  rejected  no  authentic 
facts  essential  to  a  candid  story ;  that  we  have  had  no 
theory  to  establish,  no  personal  grudge  to  gratify,  no 
unavowed  objects  to  subserve.  We  have  aimed  to  write 
a  sufficiently  full  and  absolutely  honest  history  of  a  great 
man  and  a  great  time;   and  although  we  take  it  for 


authors'   PEEFACE  XI 

granted  that  we  have  made  mistakes,  that  we  have  fallen 
into  such  errors  and  inaccuracies  as  are  unavoidable  in 
so  large  a  work,  we  claim  there  is  not  a  line  in  all  these 
volumes  dictated  by  malice  or  unfairness. 

Our  desire  to  have  this  work  placed  under  the  eyes  of 
the  greatest  possible  number  of  readers  induced  us  to 
accept  the  generous  offer  of  ''The  Century  Magazine" 
to  print  it  first  in  that  periodical.  In  this  way  it  re- 
ceived, as  we  expected,  the  intelligent  criticism  of  a  very 
large  number  of  readers,  thoroughly  informed  in  regard 
to  the  events  narrated,  and  we  have  derived  the  greatest 
advantage  from  the  suggestions  and  corrections  which 
have  been  elicited  during  the  serial  publication,  which 
began  in  November,  1886,  and  closed  early  in  1890.  We 
beg,  here,  to  make  our  sincere  acknowledgments  to  the 
hundreds  of  friendly  critics  who  have  furnished  us  with 
valuable  information. 

As  "  The  Century "  had  already  given,  during  several 
years,  a  considerable  portion  of  its  pages  to  the  elucida- 
tion and  discussion  of  the  battles  and  campaigns  of  the 
civil  war,  it  was  the  opinion  of  its  editor,  in  which  we 
coincided,  that  it  was  not  advisable  to  print  in  the  maga- 
zine the  full  narrative  sketch  of  the  war  which  we  had 
prepared.  We  omitted  also  a  large  number  of  chapters 
which,  although  essential  to  a  history  of  the  time,  and 
directly  connected  with  the  life  of  Mr.  Lincoln,  were  still 
episodical  in  their  nature,  and  were  perhaps  not  indis- 
pensable to  a  comprehension  of  the  principal  events  of 
his  administration.  These  are  all  included  in  the  present 
volumes ;  they  comprise  additional  chapters  almost  equal 
in  extent  and  fully  equal  in  interest  to  those  which  have 
already  been  printed  in  "The  Century."  Interspersed 
throughout  the  work  in  their  proper  connection  and 


xii  authors'  preface 

sequence,  and  containing  some  of  the  most  important  of 
Mr.  Lincoln's  letters,  they  lend  breadth  and  unity  to  the 
historical  drama. 

We  trust  it  will  not  be  regarded  as  presumptuous  if  we 
say  a  word  in  relation  to  the  facilities  we  have  enjoyed 
and  the  methods  we  have  used  in  the  preparation  of  this 
work.  We  knew  Mr.  Lincoln  intimately  before  his  elec- 
tion to  the  Presidency.  We  came  from  Illinois  to  Wash- 
ington with  him,  and  remained  at  his  side  and  in  his 
service — separately  or  together — until  the  day  of  his 
death.  We  were  the  daily  and  nightly  witnesses  of  the 
incidents,  the  anxieties,  the  fears,  and  the  hopes  which 
pervaded  the  Executive  Mansion  and  the  National 
Capital.  The  President's  correspondence,  both  official 
and  private,  passed  through  our  hands;  he  gave  us  his 
full  confidence.  We  had  personal  acquaintance  and 
daily  official  intercourse  with  Cabinet  Officers,  Members 
of  CongresS;  Governors,  and  Military  and  Naval  Officers 
of  all  grades,  whose  affairs  brought  them  to  the  White 
House.  It  was  during  these  years  of  the  war  that  we 
formed  the  design  of  writing  this  history  and  began  to 
prepare  for  it.  President  Lincoln  gave  it  his  sanction 
and  promised  his  cordial  cooperation.  After  several 
years'  residence  in  Europe,  we  returned  to  this  country 
and  began  the  execution  of  our  long-cherished  plan.  Mr. 
Robert  T.  Lincoln  gave  into  our  keeping  all  the  official 
and  private  papers  and  manuscripts  in  his  possession,  to 
which  we  have  added  aU  the  material  we  could  acquire 
by  industry  or  by  purchase.  It  is  with  the  advantage, 
therefore,  of  a  wide  personal  acquaintance  with  ali  the 
leading  participants  of  the  war,  and  of  perfect  familiarity 
with  the  manuscript  material,  and  also  with  the  assist- 
ance of  the  vast  bulk  of  printed  records  and  treatises 


authors'  preface  xiii 

■whicli  have  accumulated  since  1865,  that  we  have  prose- 
cuted this  work  to  its  close. 

If  we  gained  nothing  else  by  our  long  association  with 
Mr.  Lincoln  we  hope  at  least  that  we  acquired  from  him 
the  habit  of  judging  men  and  events  with  candor  and 
impartiality.  The  material  placed  in  our  hands  was  un- 
exampled in  value  and  fullness ;  we  have  felt  the  obliga- 
tion of  using  it  with  perfect  fairness.  We  have  striven 
to  be  equally  just  to  friends  and  to  adversaries;  where  the 
facts  favor  our  enemies  we  have  recorded  them  ungrudg- 
ingly ;  where  they  bear  severely  upon  statesmen  and  gen- 
erals whom  we  have  loved  and  honored  we  have  not 
scrupled  to  set  them  forth,  at  the  risk  of  being  accused 
of  coldness  and  ingratitude  to  those  with  whom  we  have 
lived  on  terms  of  intimate  friendship.  The  recollection 
of  these  friendships  will  always  be  to  us  a  source  of  pride 
and  joy ;  but  in  this  book  we  have  known  no  allegiance 
but  to  the  truth.  We  have  in  no  case  relied  upon  our 
own  memory  of  the  events  narrated,  though  they  may 
have  passed  under  our  own  eyes ;  we  have  seen  too  often 
the  danger  of  such  a  reliance  in  the  reminiscences  of 
others.  We  have  trusted  only  our  diaries  and  memoranda 
of  the  moment ;  and  in  the  documents  and  reports  we 
have  cited  we  have  used  incessant  care  to  secure  authen- 
ticity. So  far  as  possible,  every  story  has  been  traced  to 
its  source,  and  every  document  read  in  the  official  record 
or  the  original  manuscript. 

We  are  aware  of  the  prejudice  which  exists  against  a 
book  written  by  two  persons,  but  we  feel  that  in  our 
case  the  disadvantages  of  collaboration  are  reduced  to  the 
minimum.  Our  experiences,  our  observations,  our  ma- 
terial, have  been  for  twenty  years  not  merely  homoge- 
neous— they  have  been  identical.     Our  plans  were  made 


XIV 


AUTHORS'    PREFACE 


with  thorough  concert ;  our  studies  of  the  subject  were 
carried  on  together ;  we  were  able  to  work  simultaneously 
without  danger  of  repetition  or  conflict.  The  apportion- 
ment of  our  separate  tasks  has  been  dictated  purely  by 
convenience ;  the  division  of  topics  between  us  has  been 
sometimes  for  long  periods,  sometimes  almost  for  alter- 
nate chapters.  Each  has  written  an  equal  portion  of  the 
work ;  while  consultation  and  joint  revision  have  been  con- 
tinuous, the  text  of  each  remains  substantially  unaltered. 
It  is  in  the  fullest  sense,  and  in  every  part,  a  joint  work. 
We  each  assume  responsibility,  not  only  for  the  whole, 
but  for  all  the  details,  and  whatever  credit  or  blame  the 
public  may  award  our  labors  is  equally  due  to  both. 

We  commend  the  result  of  so  many  years  of  research 
and  diligence  to  all  our  countrymen,  North  and  South,  in 
the  hope  that  it  may  do  something  to  secure  a  truthful 
history  of  the  great  struggle  which  displayed  on  both 
sides  the  highest  qualities  of  American  manhood,  and 
may  contribute  in  some  measure  to  the  growth  and 
maintenance  throughout  all  our  borders  of  that  spirit 
of  freedom  and  nationality  for  which  Abraham  Lincoln 
lived  and  died. 


ILLUSTRATIONS 
Vol.  I 


Abraham  Lincoln Frontispiece. 

From  a  photogrraph  taken  about  1860  by  Hesler,  of  Chicago ; 
froiu  the  original  negative  owned  by  George  B.  Ayres,  Phila- 
delphia. 

PAGE 

Land  Warrant,  issued  to  Abraham  Linkhorn  (Lincoln)..  .      10 

Fac-simile  from  the  Field-Book  op  Daniel  Boone 12 

Surveyor's  Certificate  for  Abraham  Linkhorn  (Lincoln).     14 

House  in  which  Thomas  Lincoln  and  Nancy  Hanks  were 

Married    16 

Fac-simile  op  the  Marriage  Bond  op  Thomas  Lincoln 22 

Certificate,  or  Marriage  List,  containing  the  names  of 

Thomas  Lincoln  and  Nancy  Hanks 26 

Sarah  Bush  Lincoln  at  the  Age  op  76 32 

From  a  photograph  in  possession  of  William  H.  Herndon. 

Cabin  on  Goose-Nest    Prairie,    III.,    in   which   Thomas 

Lincoln  Lived  and  Died 48 

Model  op  Lincoln's  Invention  for  Buoying  Vessels 72 

Fac-simile  op  Drawings  in  the  Patent  Office 73 

Leap  prom  Abraham  Lincoln's  Exercise  Book 82 

Soldier's  Discharge  from  the  Black  Hawk  War,  signed 

by  a.  Lincoln,  Captain  92 

Black  Hawk 96 

From  a  portrait  by  Charles  B.  King,  from  McKenny  &  Hall's 
"  Indian  Tribes  of  North  America." 

XV 


XVI  ILLUSTKATIONS 

PAOE 

Stephen  T.  Logan    112 

From  the  portrait  in  possession  of  Ms  daughter.  Mrs.  L.  H. 
Coleman. 

Abraham  Lincoln's  Surveying  L^struments,  Saddle  Bag, 

ETC 114 

Plan  of  Roads  Surveyed  by  A.  Lincoln  and  others 116 

Fac-simile  of  Lincoln's  Report  of  the  Road  Survey 118 

O.  H.  Browning 128 

From  a  photograph  by  Waide. 

Martin  Van  Buren 144 

From  a  photograph  by  Brady. 

Col.  E.  D.  Baker 160 

From  a  photograph  by  Brady,  about  1861. 

Lincoln  and  Stuart's  Law-Office,  Springfield    168 

Lincoln's  Bookcase  and  Inkstand 170 

From  the  Keyes  Lincoln  Memorial  Collection,  Chicago. 

Globe  Tavern,  Springfield 174 

Where  Lincoln  lived  after  his  marriage. 

William  Henry  Harrison  176 

From  a  painting,  in  1841,  by  Henry  Inman,  owned  by  Benjar 
min  Harrison. 

Fac-simile  of  Marriage  Certificate  of  Abraham  Lincoln.   188 
By  courtesy  of  the  S.  S.  McClure  Co. 

Joshua  Speed  and  Wife 192 

From  a  painting  by  Healy,  about  1864. 

House  in  which  Abraham  Lincoln  was  Married 208 

Gen.  James  Shields 224 

From  a  photograph  owned  by  David  Delany. 

Henry  Clay 240 

After  a  photograph  by  Rockwood,  from  the  daguerreotype 
owned  by  Alfred  Hassack. 

Zachary  Taylor 256 

From  the  painting  by  Vanderlyn  in  the  Corcoran  Gallery. 

Joshua  R.  GiDDiNGS  288 

From  a  photograph  by  Brady. 

David  Davis 304 

From  a  photograph  by  Brady. 

James  K.  Polk 320 

From  a  photograph  by  Brady. 

Franklin  Pierce  336 

From  a  photograph  by  Brady. 


ILLUSTRATIONS  xvii 

PAGE 

Lyman  Trumbull 368 

From  a  photograph  by  Brady, 

Owen  Lovejoy 384 

From  a  photograph. 

David  R.  Atchison  400 

From  a  daguerreotype. 

Andrew  H.  Reeder  416 

From  a  photograph  by  R.  Knecht. 

James  H.  Lane  432 

By  permission  of  the  Strowbridge  Lithographing  Co. 


MAPS 
Vol.  I 

PAGE 

Map  showing  Localities  connected  with  Early  Events  in 

THE  Lincoln  Family 20 

Map  op  New  Salem,  III.,  and  Vicinity 80 

Map  of  the  Boundaries  op  Texas  256 

Historical  Map  op  the  United  States  in  1854 354 


TABLE   OF  CONTENTS 
Vol.  I 

Chaptek  I.    Lineage 

The  Lincolns  in  America.  Intimacy  with  the  Boones. 
Kentucky  in  1780.  Death  of  Abraham  Lincoln  the 
Pioneer.  Marriage  of  Thomas  Lincobi.  Birth  and 
Childhood  of  Abraham 1 

Chapter  II.    Indiana 

Thomas  Lincoln  leaves  Kentucky.  Settles  at  Gentry- 
viUe.  Death  of  Nancy  Hanks  Lincoln.  Sarah  Bush 
Johnston.  Pioneer  Life  in  Indiana.  Sports  and 
Superstitions  of  the  Early  Settlers.  The  Youth  of 
Abraham.  His  Great  Physical  Strength.  His  Voyage 
to  New  Orleans.     Removal  to  lUinois 28 

Chapter  III.    Illinois  in  1830 

The  Winter  of  the  Deep  Snow.  The  Sudden  Change. 
Pioneer  Life.  ReUgion  and  Society.  French  and 
Indians.  Formation  of  the  Pohtical  System.  The 
Courts.  Lawyers  and  Politicians.  Early  Super- 
annuation     47 

Chapter  IV.    New  Salem 

Denton  Offutt.  Lincoln's  Second  Trip  to  New  Orleans. 
His  Care  of  His  Family.  Death  of  Thomas  Lincoln. 
Offutt's  Store  in  New  Salem.  Lincoln's  Initiation  by 
the  "Clary's  Grove  Boys."  The  Voyage  of  the 
Talisman 70 


XX  TABLE    OF    CONTENTS 

Chapter  V.    Lincoln  in  the  Black  Hawk  War 

Black  Hawk.  The  Call  for  Volunteers.  Lincoln 
Elected  Captain.  Stillman's  Run.  Lincoln  Reenlists. 
The  Spy  BattaUon.  Black  Hawk's  Defeat.  Disband- 
ment  of  the  Volunteers 87 

Chapter  VI.  Surveyor  and  Representative 

Lincoln's  Candidacy  for  the  Legislature.  Runs  as  a 
Whig.  Defeated.  Berry  and  Lincoln  Merchants. 
Lincoln  Begins  the  Study  of  Law.  Postmaster. 
Siirveyor.  His  Popularity.  Elected  to  the  Legis- 
lature, 1834 101 

Chapter  VTI.    Legislative  Experience 

Lincoln  s  First  Session  in  the  Legislature.  Douglas 
and  Peck.  Lincoln  Reelected.  Bedlam  Legislation. 
Schemes  of  Railroad  Building.  Removal  of  the  Capi- 
tal to  Springfield 123 

Chapter  YIII.    The  Lincoln-Stone  Protest 

The  Pro-Slavery  Sentiment  in  Illinois.  Attempt  to 
Open  the  State  to  Slavery.  Victory  of  the  Free- 
State  Party.  Reaction.  Death  of  Lovejoy.  Pro- 
Slavery  Resolutions.    The  Protest 140 

Chapter  IX.    Collapse  of  "The  System" 

Lincoln  in  Springfield.  The  Failure  of  the  Railroad 
System.  Fall  of  the  Banks.  First  Collision  with 
Douglas.    Tampering  with  the  Judiciary 153 

Chapter  X.    Early  Law  Practice 

Early  Legal  Customs.  Lincoln's  Popularity  in  Law 
and  Politics.  A  Speech  in  1840.  The  Harrison 
Campaign.  Correspondence  with  Stuart.  Harrison 
Elected.    Melancholia 167 

Chapter  XI.    Marriage 

Courtship  and  Engagement.  The  Pioneer  Tempera- 
ment. Lincoln's  Love  Affairs.  Joshua  F.  Speed. 
Lincoln's  Visit  to  Kentucky.  Correspondence  with 
Speed.    Marriage 186 


TABLE    OF    CONTENTS  XXi 

Chapter  XII.    The  Shields  Duel 

A  Political  Satire.  James  Shields.  Lincoln  Chal- 
lenged. A  Fight  Arranged  and  Prevented.  Subse- 
quent Wranglings.  The  Whole  Matter  Forgotten. 
An  Admonition 203 

Chapter  XIII.    The  Campaign  of  1844 

Partnership  with  Stephen  T.  Logan.  Lincoln  Becomes 
a  Lawyer.  Temperance  Movement.  Baker  and  Lin- 
coln Candidates  for  the  Whig  Nomination  to  Congress. 
Baker  Successful.  Clay  Nominated  for  President. 
The  Texas  Question.     Clay  Defeated 213 

Chapter  XIV.    Lincoln's  Campaign  for  Congress 

Schemes  of  Annexation.  Opposition  at  the  North. 
Outbreak  of  War.  Lincoln  Nominated  for  Congress. 
His  Opponent  Peter  Cartwright.  Lincoln  Elected. 
The  Whigs  in  the  War.  E.  D.  Baker  in  Washington 
and  Mexico 237 

Chapter  XV.    The  Thirtieth  Congress 

Robert  C.  Winthrop  Chosen  Speaker.  Debates  on  the 
War.  Advantage  of  the  Whigs.  Acquisition  of  Terri- 
tory. The  Wilmot  Proviso.  Lincoln's  Resolutions. 
Nomination  of  Taylor  for  President.  Cass  the  Demo- 
cratic Candidate.  Lincoln's  Speech,  July  27,  1848. 
Taylor  Elected 258 

Chapter  XVI.  A  Fortunate  Escape 

Independent  Action  of  Northern  Democrats.  Lin- 
coln's Plan  for  Emancipation  in  the  District  of  Co- 
lumbia. His  Bill  Fails  to  Receive  Consideration.  A 
Similar  Bill  Signed  by  Him  Fifteen  Years  Later. 
Logan  Nominated  for  Congress  and  Defeated.  Lin- 
coln an  Applicant  for  Office.  The  Fascination  of 
Washington 283 

Chapter  XVII.    The  Circuit  Lawyer 

The  Growth  and  Change  of  Legal  Habits.  Lincoln  on 
the   Circuit.    His   Power    and  Value  as  a  Lawyer. 


XXli  TABLE    OF    CONTENTS 

Opinion  of  David  Davis.  Of  Judge  Drummond.  In- 
cidents of  the  Courts.  Lincoln's  "Wit  and  Eloquence. 
His  Life  at  Home 298 

Chapter  XVIII.    The  Balance  of  Power 

Origin  of  the  Slavery  Struggle.  The  Ordinance  of 
1787.  The  Compromises  of  the  Constitution.  The 
Missouri  Compromise.  Cotton  and  the  Cotton-GLn. 
The  Race  between  Free  and  Slave  States.  The  Admis- 
sion of  Texas.  The  Wilmot  Proviso.  New  Mexico 
and  California.  The  Compromise  Measures  of  1850. 
Finahty 310 

Chapter   XIX.     Eepeal    of    the    Missouri 
Compromise 

Stephen  A.  Douglas.  Old  Fogies  and  Young  America. 
The  Nomination  of  Pierce.  The  California  Gold  Dis- 
covery. The  National  Platforms  on  the  Slavery  Issue. 
Organization  of  Western  Territories.  The  Three  Ne- 
braska Bills.  The  Caucus  Agreement  of  the  Senate 
Committee.  Dixon's  Repealing  Amendment.  Douglas 
Adopts  Dixon's  Proposition.  Passage  of  the  Kansas- 
Nebraska  Act 330 

Chapter  XX.    The  Drift  of  Politics 

The  Storm  of  Agitation.  The  Free  Soil  Party.  The 
American  Party.  The  Anti-Nebraska  Party.  Dissolu- 
tion of  the  Whig  Party.  The  Congressional  Elections. 
Democratic  Defeat.    Banks  Elected  Speaker  ....  352 

Chapter  XXI.    Lincoln  and  Trumbull 

The  Nebraska  Question  in  Illinois.  Douglas's  Chicago 
Speech.  Lincoln  Reappears  in  Politics.  Political 
Speeches  at  the  State  Fair.  A  Debate  between  Lincoln 
and  Douglas.  Lincoln's  Peoria  Speech.  An  Anti- 
Nebraska  Legislature  Elected.  Lincoln's  Candidacy 
for  the  Senate.  Shields  and  Matteson.  Trumbull 
Elected  Senator.    Lincoln's  Letter  to  Robertson.    .     .  365 

Chapter  XXII.    The  Border  Euffians 

The  Opening  of  Kansas  Territory.  Andrew  H.  Reeder 
Appointed  Governor.    Atchison's  Propaganda.     The 


TABLE    OF    CONTENTS  XXIU 

Missouri  Blue  Lodges.  The  Emigrant  Aid  Company. 
The  Town  of  Lawrence  Founded.  Governor  Reeder's 
Independent  Action.  The  First  Border  Ruffian  In- 
vasion.   The  Election  of  Whitfield 393 

Chapter  XXIII.    The  Bogus  Laws 

Governor  Reeder's  Census.  The  Second  Border  Ruffian 
Invasion.  Missouri  Voters  Elect  the  Kansas  Legis- 
lature. Westport  and  Shawnee  Mission.  The  Governor 
Convenes  the  Legislature  at  Pawnee.  The  Legislature 
Returns  to  Shawnee  Mission.  Governor  Reeder's 
Vetoes.  The  Governor's  Removal.  Enactment  of  the 
Bogus  Laws.   Despotic  Statutes.   Lecompton  Founded  408 

Chapter  XXIV.    The  Topeka  Constitution 

The  Bogus  Legislature  Defines  Kansas  Pohtics.  The 
Big  Springs  Convention.  Ex-Governor  Reeder's  Res- 
olutions. Formation  of  the  Free -State  Party.  A 
Constitutional  Convention  at  Topeka.  The  Topeka 
Constitution.  President  Pierce  Proclaims  the  Topeka 
Movement  Revolutionary.  Refusal  to  Recognize  the 
Bogus  Laws.  Chief-Justice  Lecompte's  Doctrine  of 
Constructive  Treason.  Arrests  and  Indictment  of  the 
Free-State  Leaders.  Colonel  Sumner  Disperses  the 
Topeka  Legislature 425 

Chapter  XXV.    Civil  War  in  Kansas 

Wilson  Shannon  Appointed  Governor.  The  Law  and 
Order  Party  Formed  at  Leavenworth.  Sheriff  Jones. 
The  Branson  Rescue.  The  Wakarusa  War.  Sharps 
Rifles.  Governor  Shannon's  Treaty.  Guerrilla  Leaders 
and  Civil  War.  The  Investigating  Committee  of  Con- 
gress. The  Flight  of  Ex-Governor  Reeder.  The 
Border  Ruffians  March  on  Lawrence.  Burning  of  the 
Free-State  Hotel 438 


ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 


CHAPTER  I 


LINEAGE 


IN  the  year  1780,  Abi'aham  Lincoln,  a  member  of  chap,  l 
a  respectable  and  well-to-do  family  in  Rocking-  nso. 
ham  County,  Virginia,  started  westward  to  establish 
himself  in  the  newly-explored  country  of  Kentucky. 
He  entered  several  large  tracts  of  fertile  land,  and 
returning  to  Virginia  disposed  of  his  property 
there,  and  with  his  wife  and  five  children  went 
back  to  Kentucky  and  settled  in  Jefferson  County. 
Little  is  known  of  this  pioneer  Lincoln  or  of  his 
father.  Most  of  the  records  belonging  to  that 
branch  of  the  family  were  destroyed  in  the  civil 
war.  Their  early  orphanage,  the  wild  and  illiterate 
life  they  led  on  the  frontier,  severed  their  con- 
nection with  their  kindred  in  the  East.  This 
often  happened;  there  are  hundreds  of  families 
in  the  West  bearing  historic  names  and  probably 
descended  from  well-known  houses  in  the  older 
States  or  in  England,  which,  by  passing  through 
one  or  two  generations  of  ancestors  who  could  not 
read  or  wi'ite,  have  lost  their  continuity  with  the 
past  as  effectually  as  if  a  deluge  had  intervened 
Vol.  L— 1 


I  ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

Chap.  I.  between  the  last  century  and  this.  Even  the  patro- 
nymic has  been  frequently  distorted  beyond  recog- 
nition by  slovenly  pronunciation  during  the  years 
when  letters  were  a  lost  art,  and  by  the  phonetic 
spelling  of  the  first  boy  in  the  family  who  learned 
the  use  of  the  pen.  There  are  Lincoln s  in  Ken- 
tucky and  Tennessee  belonging  to  the  same  stock 
with  the  President,  whose  names  are  spelled  "  Link- 
horn"  and  "Linkhern."  All  that  was  known  of 
the  emigrant,  Abraham  Lincoln,  by  his  immediate 
descendants  was  that  his  progenitors,  who  were 
Quakers,  came  from  Berks  County,  Pennsylvania, 
into  Virginia,  and  there  throve  and  prospered.^  But 
we  now  know,  with  sufficient  clearness,  through  the 
wide-spread  and  searching  luster  which  surrounds 
the  name,  the  history  of  the  migrations  of  the 
family  since  its  arrival  on  this  continent,  and  the 
circumstances  under  which  the  Vii'ginia  pioneer 
started  for  Kentucky. 
1638.  The  first  ancestor  of  the  line  of  whom  we  have 

knowledge  was  Samuel  Lincoln,  of  Norwich,  Eng- 
land, who  came  to  Hingham,  Massachusetts,  in  1638, 
and  died  there.  He  left  a  son,  Mordecai,  whose  son, 
of  the  same  name, — and  it  is  a  name  which  persists 
in  every  branch  of  the  family,^ — removed  to  Mon- 
mouth, New  Jersey,  and  thence  to  Amity  township, 

1  We  desire  to  express  our  obli-  arisen  in  the  attempt  to  trace 
gations  to  Edwin  Salter,  Samuel  their  genealogy.  For  instance, 
L.  Smedley,  Samuel  Shackford,  Abraham  Lincoln,  of  Chester 
Samuel  W.  Pennypacker,  How-  County,  son  of  one  Mordecai  and 
ard  M.  Jenkins,  and  John  T.  brotherof  another,  the  President's 
Harris,  Jr.,  for  information  and  ancestors,  left  a  fair  estate,  by 
suggestions  which  have  been  of  will,  to  his  children,  whose  names 
use  to  us  in  this  chapter.  were     John,     Abraham,     Isaac, 

2  The  Lincolns,  in  naming  their  Jacob,  Mordecai,  Rebecca,  and 
children,  followed  so  strict  a  tra-  Sarah — precisely  the  same  names 
dition  that  great  confusion  has  we  find  in  three  collateral  families. 


LINEAGE 

now  a  part  of  Berks  County,  Pennsylvania,  where  chap.  i. 
he  died  in  1735,  fifty  years  old.  From  a  copy  of  his 
will,  recorded  in  the  office  of  the  Register  in  Phila- 
delphia, we  gather  that  he  was  a  man  of  considerable 
property.  In  the  inventory  of  his  effects,  made  after 
his  death,  he  is  styled  by  the  appraisers,  "  Mordecai 
Lincoln,  Gentleman."  His  son  John  received  by  his 
father's  will  "  a  certain  piece  of  land  lying  in  the 
Jerseys,  containing  three  hundred  acres,"  the  other 
sons  and  daughters  having  been  liberally  provided 
for  from  the  Pennsylvania  property.  This  John 
Lincoln  left  New  Jersey  some  years  later,  and  about 
1750  established  himself  in  Eockingham  County,  ma 
Virginia.  He  had  five  sons,  to  whom  he  gave  the 
names  which  were  traditional  in  the  family :  Abra- 
ham,— the  pioneer  first  mentioned, — Isaac,  Jacob, 
Thomas,  and  John.  Jacob  and  John  remained  in  Vir- 
ginia ;  the  former  was  a  soldier  in  the  War  of  the 
Revolution,  and  took  part  as  lieutenant  in  a  Virginia 
regiment  at  the  siege  of  Yorktown.  Isaac  went  to  a 
place  on  the  Holston  River  in  Tennessee ;  Thomas 
followed  his  brother  to  Kentucky,  lived  and  died 
there,  and  his  children  then  emigi-ated  to  Ten- 
nessee.^ With  the  one  memorable  exception  the 
family  seem  to  have  been  modest,  thrifty,  unambi- 
tious people.  Even  the  great  fame  and  conspicu- 
ousness  of  the  President  did  not  tempt  them  out 
of  their  retii'ement.  Robert  Lincoln,  of  Hancock 
County,  Illinois,  a  cousin-german,  became  a  captain 
and  commissary  of  volunteers ;  none  of  the  others, 

1  It  is  an    interesting    coinci-  tive  of  the  President,  performed, 

dence,  for  the  knowledge  of  which  on  the  17th  of  May,  1837,  the 

we  are  indebted  to  Colonel  John  marriage   ceremony    of    Andrew 

B.    Brownlow,   that    a    minister  Johnson,    Mr.    Lincoln's   succes- 

named  Mordecai  Lincoln,  a  rela-  sor  in  the  Presidency. 


4 


ABKAHAM    LINCOLN 


Chap.  I.  SO  far  as  we  know,  ever  made  their  existence  known 
to  their  powerful  kinsman  dm-ing  the  years  of  his 
glory.' 

It  was  many  years  after  the  death  of  the  Presi- 
dent that  his  son  learned  the  probable  circum- 
stances under  which  the  pioneer  Lincoln  removed 
to  the  West,  and  the  intimate  relations  which  sub- 
sisted between  his  family  and  the  most  celebrated 
man  in  early  Western  annals.  There  is  little  doubt 
that  it  was  on  account  of  his  association  with  the 
famous  Daniel  Boone  that  Abraham  Lincoln  went 
to  Kentucky.  The  families  had  for  a  century  been 
closely  allied.  There  were  frequent  intermarriages  ^ 
among  them — both  being  of  Quaker  lineage.  By 
the  will  of  Mordecai  Lincoln,  to  which  reference 
has  been  made,  his  "  loving  friend  and  neighbor  " 


1  Soon  after  Mr.  Lincoln  arrived 
in  Washington  in  1861,  he  re- 
ceived the  following  letter  from 
one  of  his  Virginia  kinsmen,  the 
last  communication  which  ever 
came  from  them.  It  was  written 
on  paper  adorned  with  a  portrait 
of  Jefferson  Davis,  and  was  in- 
closed in  an  envelope  emblazoned 
with  the  Confederate  flag  : 
"To  Abraham  Lincoln,  Esq., 
President  of  the  Northern  Con- 
federacy. 

"  Sir  :  Having  just  returned 
from  a  trip  through  Virginia, 
North  Carolina,  and  Tennessee, 
permit  me  to  inform  you  that  you 
will  get  whipped  out  of  your  boots. 
To-day  I  met  a  gentleman  from 
Anna,  Illinois,  and  although  he 
voted  for  you  he  says  that  the 
moment  your  troops  leave  Cairo 
they  will  get  the  spots  knocked 
out  of  them.  My  dear  sir,  these 
are  facts  which  time  will  prove  to 
be  correct. 


"I  am,  sir,  with  every  consid- 
eration, yours  respectfully, 

"Minor  Lincoln, 
"Of  the  Staunton  stock  of  Lin- 

colns." 

There  was  a  young  Abraham 
Lincoln  on  the  Confederate  side 
in  the  Shenandoah  distinguished 
for  his  courage  and  ferocity.  He 
lay  in  wait  and  shot  a  Dunkard 
preacher,  whom  he  suspected  of 
furnishing  information  to  the 
Union  army.  (Letter  from  Samuel 
W.  Pennypacker.) 

2  A  letter  from  David  J.  Lincoln, 
of  Birdsboro,  Berks  County,  Penn- 
sylvania, to  the  writers,  says, "  My 
grandfather,  Abraham  Lincoln, 
was  married  to  Anna  Boone,  a 
first  cousin  of  Daniel  Boone,  July 
10,  1760."  He  was  half-brother 
of  John  Lincoln,  and  afterwards 
became  a  man  of  some  promin  ence 
in  Pennsylvania,  serving  in  the 
Constitutional  Convention  in 
1789-90. 


LINEAGE  I 

George  Boone  was  made  a  trustee  to  assist  his  chap.  i. 
widow  in  the  care  of  the  property.  Squire  Boone, 
the  father  of  Daniel,  was  one  of  the  appraisers  who 
made  the  inventory  of  Mordecai  Lincohi's  estate. 
The  intercoui'se  between  the  famihes  was  kept  up 
after  the  Boones  had  removed  to  North  Carolina 
and  John  Lincoln  had  gone  to  Virginia,  Abraham 
Lincoln,  son  of  John,  and  grandfather  of  the  Presi- 
dent, was  married  to  Miss  Mary  Shipley  ^  in  North 
Carolina.  The  inducement  which  led  him  to  leave 
Virginia,  where  his  standing  and  his  fortune  were 
assured,  was,  in  all  probability,  his  intimate  family 
relations  with  the  great  explorer,  the  hero  of  the 
new  country  of  Kentucky,  the  land  of  fabulous 
richness  and  unlimited  adventure.  At  a  time  when 
the  Eastern  States  were  ringing  with  the  fame  of 
the  mighty  hunter  who  was  then  in  the  prime  of 
his  manhood,  and  in  the  midst  of  those  achieve- 
ments which  will  forever  render  him  one  of  the 

1  In  giving  to  the  wife  of  the  Augusta  County"  says  he  married 
pioneer  Lincoln  the  name  of  Mary  Elizabeth  Winter,  a  cousin  of 
Shipley  we  follow  the  tradition  Daniel  Boone.  The  Boone  and 
in  his  family.  The  Hon.  J.  L.  Lincoln  families  were  large  and 
Nail,  of  Missouri,  grandson  of  there  were  frequent  intermar- 
Nancy  (Lincoln)  Brumfield,  Abra-  riages  among  them,  and  the  patri- 
ham  Lincoln's  youngest  child,  has  archal  name  of  Abraham  was  a 
given  us  so  clear  a  statement  of  favorite  one.  There  was  still 
the  case  that  we  cannot  hesitate  another  Lincoln,  Hannaniah  by 
to  accept  it,  although  it  conflicts  name,  who  was  also  intimately  as- 
with  equally  positive  statements  sociated  with  the  Boones.  His  sig- 
from  other  sources.  The  late  nature  appears  on  the  surveyor's 
Gideon  Welles,  Secretary  of  the  certificate  for  Abraham  Lincoln's 
Navy,  who  gave  much  intelligent  land  in  Jefferson  County,  and  he 
effort  to  genealogical  researches,  joined  Daniel  Boone  in  1798  in 
was  convinced  that  the  Abraham  the  purchase  of  the  tract  of  land 
Lincoln  who  married  Miss  Han-  on  the  Missouri  River  where 
nah  Winters,  a  daughter  of  Boone  died.  (Letter  from  Rich- 
Ann  Boone,  sister  of  the  famous  ard  V.  B.  Lincoln,  printed  in  the 
Daniel,was  the  President's  grand-  ' '  Williamsport  [Pa.]  Banner," 
father.     Waddell's   "Annals    of  Feb,  25,  1881.) 


5  ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

Chap.  I.  most  picturesque  heroes  in  all  our  annals,  it  is  not 
to  be  wondered  at  that  his  own  circle  of  friends 
should  have  caught  the  general  enthusiasm  and 
felt  the  desire  to  emulate  his  career. 

Boone's  exploration  of  Kentucky  had  begun  some 
ten  years  before  Lincoln  set  out  to  follow  his  trail. 
In  1769  he  made  his  memorable  journey  to  that 
virgin  wilderness  of  whose  beauty  he  always  loved 
to  speak  even  to  his  latest  breath.  During  all  that 
year  he  hunted,  finding  everywhere  abundance  of 
game.  "  The  buffalo,"  Boone  says,  "were  more  fre- 
quent than  I  have  seen  cattle  in  the  settlements, 
browsing  on  the  leaves  of  the  cane,  or  cropping  the 
herbage  on  these  extensive  plains,  fearless  because 
ignorant  of  the  violence  of  man.  Sometimes  we 
saw  hundreds  in  a  drove,  and  the  numbers  about 
the  salt  springs  were  amazing."  In  the  course  of 
the  winter,  however,  he  was  captured  by  the  Indians 
while  hunting  with  a  comrade,  and  when  they  had 
contrived  to  escape  they  never  found  again  any 
trace  of  the  rest  of  their  party.  But  a  few  days 
later  they  saw  two  men  approaching  and  hailed 
them  with  the  hunter's  caution,  "  Hullo,  strangers ; 
who  are  you ! "  They  replied,  "  White  men  and 
friends."  They  proved  to  be  Squire  Boone  and 
another  adventurer  from  North  Carolina.  The 
younger  Boone  had  made  that  long  pilgiimage 
through  the  trackless  woods,  led  by  an  instinct  of 
doglike  affection,  to  find  his  elder  brother  and  share 
his  sylvan  pleasures  and  dangers.  Their  two  com- 
panions were  soon  waylaid  and  killed,  and  the 
Boones  spent  their  long  winter  in  that  mighty 
solitude  undisturbed.  In  the  spring  their  ammuni- 
tion, which  was  to  them  the  only  necessary  of  life, 


LINEAGE 

ran  low,  and  one  of  them  must  retm*n  to  the  settle-  chap.  i. 
ments  to  replenish  the  stock.  It  need  not  be  said 
which  assumed  this  duty ;  the  cadet  went  uncom- 
plaining on  his  way,  and  Daniel  spent  three  months 
in  absolute  loneliness,  as  he  himself  expressed  it, 
"by  myself,  without  bread,  salt,  or  sugar,  without 
company  of  my  fellow-creatures,  or  even  a  horse  or 
dog."  He  was  not  insensible  to  the  dangers  of  his 
situation.  He  never  approached  his  camp  without 
the  utmost  precaution,  and  always  slept  in  the  cane- 
brakes  if  the  signs  were  unfavorable.  But  he  makes 
in  his  memoirs  this  curious  reflection,  which  would 
seem  like  affectation  in  one  less  perfectly  and  simply 
heroic :  "  How  unhappy  such  a  situation  for  a  man 
tormented  with  fear,  which  is  vain  if  no  danger 
comes,  and  if  it  does,  only  augments  the  pain.  It 
was  my  happiness  to  be  destitute  of  this  afflicting 
passion,  with  which  I  had  the  greatest  reason  to  be 
afflicted."  After  his  brother's  return,  for  a  year 
longer  they  hunted  in  those  lovely  wilds,  and  then 
returned  to  the  Yadkin  to  bring  their  families  to 
the  new  domain.  They  made  the  long  journey 
back,  five  hundred  miles,  in  peace  and  safety. 

For  some  time  after  this  Boone  took  no  con- 
spicuous part  in  the  settlement  of  Kentucky.  The 
expedition  with  which  he  left  the  Yadkin  in  1773 
met  with  a  terrible  disaster  near  Cumberland  Gap, 
in  which  his  eldest  son  and  five  more  young  men 
were  killed  by  Indians,  and  the  whole  party,  dis- 
couraged by  the  blow,  retired  to  the  safer  region  of 
Clinch  River.  In  the  mean  time  the  dauntless  spec- 
ulator Richard  Henderson  had  begun  his  occupation 
with  all  the  pomp  of  viceroyalty.  Harrodsburg  had 
been  founded,  and  corn  planted,  and  a  flourishing 


8  ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 


Chap.  I. 


colony  established  at  the  Falls  of  the  Ohio.  In  1774 
Boone  was  called  upon  by  the  Governor  of  Virginia 
to  escort  a  party  of  surveyors  through  Kentucky, 
and  on  his  return  was  given  the  command  of  three 
garrisons;  and  for  several  years  thereafter  the 
history  of  the  State  is  the  record  of  his  feats  of 
arms.  No  one  ever  equaled  him  in  his  knowledge 
of  Indian  character,  and  his  influence  with  the 
savages  was  a  mystery  to  him  and  to  themselves. 
Three  times  he  fell  into  their  hands  and  they  did 
not  harm  him.  Twice  they  adopted  him  into  their 
tribes  while  they  were  still  on  the  war-path.  Once 
they  took  him  to  Detroit,^  to  show  the  Long-Knife 
chieftains  of  King  George  that  they  also  could  ex- 
hibit trophies  of  memorable  prowess,  but  they 
refused  to  give  him  up  even  to  their  British  allies. 
In  no  quality  of  wise  woodcraft  was  he  wanting. 
He  could  outrun  a  dog  or  a  deer ;  he  could  thread 
the  woods  without  food  day  and  night;  he  could 
find  his  way  as  easily  as  the  panther  could.  Al- 
though a  great  athlete  and  a  tireless  warrior,  he 
hated  fighting  and  only  fought  for  peace.  In  coun- 
cil and  in  war  he  was  equally  valuable.  His  advice 
was  never  rejected  without  disaster,  nor  followed  but 
with  advantage ;  and  when  the  fighting  once  began 
there  was  not  a  rifle  in  Kentucky  which  could  rival 
his.  At  the  nine  days'  siege  of  Boonesboro'  he 
took  deliberate  aim  and  killed  a  negro  renegade  who 
was  harassing  the  garrison  from  a  tree  five  hundred 
and  twenty-five  feet  away,  and  whose  head  only 
was  visible  from  the  fort.  The  mildest  and  the 
quietest  of  men,  he  had  killed  dozens  of  enemies 

1  Silas  Fanner,  historiographer  on  the  10th  of  March,  1778, 
of  Detroit,  informs  us  that  Dan-  and  that  he  remained  there  a 
iel    Boone    was    brought    there    month. 


LINEAGE  i 

with  his  own  hand,  and  all  this  without  malice  and,  chap.  i. 
strangest  of  all,  without  incurring  the  hatred  of  his 
adversaries.  He  had  self-respect  enough,  but  not 
a  spark  of  vanity.  After  the  fatal  battle  of  the  Blue 
Licks, —  where  the  only  point  of  light  in  the  day's 
terrible  work  was  the  wisdom  and  valor  with  which 
he  had  partly  retrieved  a  disaster  he  foresaw  but 
was  powerless  to  prevent, —  when  it  became  his 
duty,  as  senior  surviving  officer  of  the  forces,  to 
report  the  affair  to  Governor  Harrison,  his  dry  and 
naked  narrative  gives  not  a  single  hint  of  what  he 
had  done  himself,  nor  mentions  the  gallant  son 
lying  dead  on  the  field,  nor  the  wounded  brother 
whose  gallantry  might  justly  have  claimed  some 
notice.  He  was  thinking  solely  of  the  public  good, 
saying,  "I  have  encouraged  the  people  in  this 
country  all  that  I  could,  but  I  can  no  longer  justify 
them  or  myself  to  risk  our  lives  here  under  such 
extraordinary  hazards."  He  therefore  begged  his 
Excellency  to  take  immediate  measures  for  relief. 
During  the  short  existence  of  Henderson's  legis- 
lature he  was  a  member  of  it,  and  not  the  least 
useful  one.  Among  his  measures  was  one  for  the 
protection  of  game. 

Everything  we  know  of  the  emigrant  Abraham 
Lincoln  goes  to  show  that  it  was  under  the  auspices 
of  this  most  famous  of  our  pioneers  that  he  set  out 
from  Rockingham  County  to  make  a  home  for  him- 
self and  his  young  family  in  that  wild  region  which 
Boone  was  wresting  from  its  savage  holders.  He 
was  not  without  means  of  his  own.  He  took  with 
him  funds  enough  to  enter  an  amount  of  land 
which  would  have  made  his  family  rich  if  they  had 
retained  it.    The  county  records  show  him  to  have 


LAND    WARRANT    ISSUED    TO    ABRAHAM    LINKHORN    (LINCOLN). 

The  original,  of  wMcli  this  is  a  reduced  fac-simile,  is  in  the  possession  of  Colonel 

K.  T.  Dnrrett,  Louisville,  Ky. 


10 


LINEAGE  11 

been  the  possessor  of  a  domain  of  some  seventeen    chap.  i. 
hundred  acres.     There  is   still  in   existence^  the 
original  warrant,   dated   March   4,    1780,  for  four 
hundred  acres  of  land,  for  which  the  pioneer  had 
paid  "  into  the  publick  Treasury  one  hundred  and 
sixty  pounds  current  money,"  and  a  copy  of  the    jefferson 
surveyor's  certificate,  giving  the  metes  and  bounds     Re°co?d8. 
of  the  property  on  Floyd's  Fork,  which  remained 
for  many  years  in  the  hands  of  Mordecai  Lincoln, 
the  pioneer's  eldest  son  and  heir.    The  name  was 
misspelled  "  Linkhorn  "  by  a  blunder  of  the  clerk  in 
the  land-office,  and  the  error  was  perpetuated  in 
the  subsequent  record. 

Kentucky  had  been  for  many  years  the  country 
of  romance  and  fable  for  Virginians.  Twenty  years 
before  Governor  Spotswood  had  crossed  the  AUe- 
ghanies  and  returned  to  establish  in  a  Williams- 
burg   tavern    that    fantastic    order    of    nobility 

1  In  the  possession  of  Colonel  2.   Eight    hundred    acres    on 

Eeuben  T.  Durrett,  of  Louisville,  Green  River,   near  Green  River 

a  gentleman  who  has  made  the  Lick,    entered    June     7,    1780, 

early  history  of  his  State  a  sub-  and      surveyed      October      12, 

ject    of    careful    study,    and    to  1784. 

whom  we   are   greatly  indebted  3.  Five  hundred  acres  in  Carap- 

for  information  in  regard  to  the  bell  County,    date    of   entry  not 

settlement   of    the    Lincolns    in  known,  but  surveyed  September 

Kentucky.     He  gives  the  follow-  27,   1798,    and   patented   June 

ing  list  of  lands  in  that   State  30,      1799  —  the     survey    and 

owned  by  Abraham  Lincoln  :  patent    evidently    following   his 

1.  Four  hundred  acres  on  Long  entry  after  his  death.  It  is  pos- 
Run,  a  branch  of  Floyd's  Fork,  in  sible  that  this  was  the  five-hun- 
Jefferson  County,  entered  May  dred-acre  tract  found  in  Boone's 
29,  1780,  and  surveyed  May  7,  field-book,  in  the  possession  of 
1785.  We  have  in  our  posses-  Lyman  C.  Draper,  Esq.,  Secre- 
sion  the  original  patent  issued  by  tary  of  the  Wisconsin  Historical 
Governor  Garrard,  of  Kentucky,  Society,  and  erroneously  sup- 
to  Abraham  Lincoln  for  this  prop-  posed  by  some  to  have  been  iu 
erty.  It  was  found  by  Col.  A.  C.  Mercer  County.  Boone  was  a 
Matthews,  of  the  99th  Illinois,  deputy  of  Colonel  Thomas  Mar- 
in 1863,  at  an  abandoned  resi-  shall,  Surveyor  of  Fayette 
dence  near  Indianola,  Texas.  County. 


12 


ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 


Chap.  I. 


which  he  called  the 
Knights  of  The  Gold- 
en Horseshoe/  and, 
with  a  worldly  wisdom 
which  was  scarcely 
consistent  with  these 
medieval  affecta- 

tions, to  press  upon 
the  attention   of  the 
British     Government 
the  building  of  a  line 
of    frontier    forts    to 
guard  the  Ohio  River 
from      the      French. 
Many  years  after  him 
the  greatest  of  all  Vir- 
ginians   crossed    the 
mountains  again,  and 
became  heavily  inter- 
ested in  those  schemes 
of   emigration  which 
fiUed    the    minds    of 
many  of  the  leading 
men  in  America  un- 
til they  were  driven 
out  by  graver  cares 
and  more  imperative 
duties.      Washington 
had  acquired   claims 
and    patents    to    the 
amount  of  thirty  or 
forty  thousand  acres 
of  land  in  the  West ; 

1  Their  motto  was 


•a 
•5 


Sic  jurat  transcendere  monies. 


LINEAGE  13 

Benjamin  Franklin  and  the  Lees  were  also  large  chap.  i. 
owners  of  these  speculative  titles.  They  formed,  it 
is  true,  rather  an  airy  and  unsubstantial  sort  of 
possession,  the  same  ground  being  often  claimed 
by  a  dozen  different  persons  or  companies  under 
various  grants  from  the  crown  or  from  legislatures, 
or  through  purchase  by  adventurers  from  Indian 
councils.  But  about  the  time  of  which  we  are  speak- 
ing the  spirit  of  emigration  had  reached  the  lower 
strata  of  colonial  society,  and  a  steady  stream  of 
pioneers  began  pouring  over  the  passes  of  the  moun- 
tains into  the  green  and  fertile  valleys  of  Kentucky 
and  Tennessee.  They  selected  their  homes  in  the 
most  eligible  spots  to  which  chance  or  the  report  of 
earlier  explorers  directed  them,  with  little  knowl- 
edge or  care  as  to  the  rightful  ownership  of  the 
land,  and  too  often  cleared  their  corner  of  the  wil- 
derness for  the  benefit  of  others.  Even  Boone,  to 
whose  courage,  forest  lore,  and  singular  intuitions 
of  savage  character  the  State  of  Kentucky  owed 
more  than  to  any  other  man,  was  deprived  in  his 
old  age  of  his  hard-earned  homestead  through  his 
ignorance  of  legal  forms,  and  removed  to  Missouri 
to  repeat  in  that  new  territory  his  labors  and  his 
misfortunes. 

The  period  at  which  Lincoln  came  West  was  one  itm 
of  note  in  the  history  of  Kentucky.  The  labors  of 
Henderson  and  the  Transylvania  Company  had 
begun  to  bear  fruit  in  extensive  plantations  and  a 
connected  system  of  forts.  The  land  laws  of  Ken- 
tucky had  reduced  to  something  like  order  the 
chaos  of  conflicting  claims  arising  from  the  various 
grants  and  the  different  preemption  customs  under 
which  settlers  occupied  their  property.  The  victory 


16  ABKAHAM    LINCOLN 

Chap.  I.  of  this  Commonwealth,"  to  quote  the  language  of 
the  philosophic  Legislature,  "  always  to  encourage 
and  promote  every  design  which  may  tend  to  the 
improvement  of  the  mind  and  the  diffusion  of  use- 
ful knowledge  even  among  its  remote  citizens, 
whose  situation  in  a  barbarous  neighborhood  and  a 
savage  intercourse  might  otherwise  render  them 
unfriendly  to  science."  This  was  the  origin  of  the 
Transylvania  University  of  Lexington,  which  rose 
and  flourished  for  many  years  on  the  utmost  verge 
of  civilization. 

The  "  barbarous  neighborhood"  and  the  "  savage 
intercourse  "  undoubtedly  had  their  effect  upon  the 
manners  and  morals  of  the  settlers ;  but  we  should 
fall  into  error  if  we  took  it  for  gi-anted  that  the 
pioneers  were  all  of  one  piece.  The  ruling  motive 
which  led  most  of  them  to  the  wilds  was  that  Anglo- 
Saxon  lust  of  land  which  seems  inseparable  from 
the  race.  The  prospect  of  possessing  a  four- 
hundred-acre  farm  by  merely  occupying  it,  and  the 
privilege  of  exchanging  a  basketful  of  almost  worth- 
less continental  currency  for  an  unlimited  estate  at 
the  nominal  value  of  forty  cents  per  acre,  were 
irresistible  to  thousands  of  land-loving  Virginians 
and  Carolinians  whose  ambition  of  proprietorship 
was  larger  than  their  means.  Accompanying  this 
flood  of  emigrants  of  good  faith  was  the  usual  froth 
and  scum  of  shiftless  idlers  and  adventurers,  who 
were  either  drifting  with  a  current  they  were  too 
worthless  to  withstand,  or  in  pursuit  of  dishonest 
gains  in  fresher  and  simpler  regions.  The  vices 
and  virtues  of  the  pioneers  were  such  as  proceeded 
from  their  environment.  They  were  careless  of 
human  life  because  life  was  worth  comparatively 


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THE  ir'*ftRY 

OF  THE 

\IH1VERS1IV  GF  51L1NG1S 


LINEAGE  17 

little  in  that  hard  struggle  for  existence  ;  but  they  chap.  i. 
had  a  remarkably  clear  idea  of  the  value  of  property, 
and  visited  theft  not  only  with  condign  punish- 
ment, but  also  with  the  severest  social  proscrip- 
tion. Steahng  a  horse  was  punished  more  swiftly 
and  with  more  feeling  than  homicide.  A  man 
might  be  replaced  more  easily  than  the  other  animal. 
Sloth  was  the  worst  of  weaknesses.  An  habitual 
drunkard  was  more  welcome  at  "raisings  "  and  "log- 
rollings" than  a  known  faineant.  The  man  who  did 
not  do  a  man's  share  where  work  was  to  be  done  was 
christened  "  Lazy  Lawrence,"  and  that  was  the  end 
of  him  socially.  Cowardice  was  punished  by  inex- 
orable disgrace.  The  point  of  honor  was  as  strictly 
observed  as  it  ever  has  been  in  the  idlest  and  most 
artificial  society.  If  a  man  accused  another  of 
falsehood,  the  ordeal  by  fisticuffs  was  instantly 
resorted  to.  Weapons  were  rarely  employed  in 
these  chivalrous  encounters,  being  kept  for  more 
serious  use  with  Indians  and  wild  beasts ;  neverthe- 
less fists,  teeth,  and  the  gouging  thumb  were  often 
employed  with  fatal  effect.  Yet  among  this  rude 
and  uncouth  people  there  was  a  genuine  and  re- 
markable respect  for  law.  They  seemed  to  recog- 
nize it  as  an  absolute  necessity  of  their  existence. 
In  the  territory  of  Kentucky,  and  afterwards  in 
that  of  Illinois,  it  occurred  at  several  periods  in  the 
transition  from  counties  to  territories  and  states, 
that  the  country  was  without  any  organized  author- 
ity. But  the  people  were  a  law  unto  themselves. 
Their  improvised  courts  and  councils  administered 
law  and  equity ;  contracts  were  enforced,  debts 
were  collected,  and  a  sort  of  order  was  maintained. 
It  may  be  said,  generally,  that  the  character  of 
Vol.  I.— 2 


18  ABKAHAM    LINCOLN 

Chap.  I.  this  people  was  far  above  their  circumstances.  In 
all  the  accessories  of  life,  by  which  we  are  accus- 
tomed to  rate  communities  and  races  in  the  scale 
of  civilization,  they  were  little  removed  from  prim- 
itive barbarism.  They  dressed  in  the  skins  of  wild 
beasts  killed  by  themselves,  and  in  linen  stuffs 
woven  by  themselves.  They  hardly  knew  the  use 
of  iron  except  in  their  firearms  and  knives.  Their 
food  consisted  almost  exclusively  of  game,  fish,  and 
roughly  ground  corn-meal.  Their  exchanges  were 
made  by  barter;  many  a  child  grew  up  without 
ever  seeing  a  piece  of  money.  Their  habitations 
were  hardly  superior  to  those  of  the  savages  with 
whom  they  waged  constant  war.  Large  families 
lived  in  log  huts,  put  together  without  iron,  and 
far  more  open  to  the  inclemencies  of  the  skies 
than  the  pig-styes  of  the  careful  farmer  of  to-day. 
An  early  schoolmaster  says  that  the  first  place 
where  he  went  to  board  was  the  house  of  one 
Lucas,  consisting  of  a  single  room,  sixteen  feet 
square,  and  tenanted  by  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Lucas,  ten 
children,  three  dogs,  two  cats,  and  himself.  There 
were  many  who  lived  in  hovels  so  cold  that  they 
had  to  sleep  on  their  shoes  to  keep  them  from 
freezing  too  stiff  to  be  put  on.  The  children  grew 
inured  to  misery  like  this,  and  played  barefoot  in 
the  snow.  It  is  an  error  to  suppose  that  all  this 
could  be  undergone  with  impunity.  They  suffered 
terribly  from  malarial  and  rheumatic  complaints, 
and  the  instances  of  vigorous  and  painless  age 
were  rare  among  them.  The  lack  of  moral  and 
mental  sustenance  was  still  more  marked.  They 
were  inclined  to  be  a  religious  people,  but  a  sermon 
was  an  unusual  luxury,  only  to  be  enjoyed  at  long 


LINEAGE  19 

intervals  and  by  great  expense  of  time.  There  chap.  i. 
were  few  books  or  none,  and  there  was  little  oppor- 
tunity for  the  exchange  of  opinion.  Any  variation 
in  the  dreary  course  of  events  was  welcome.  A 
murder  was  not  without  its  advantages  as  a  stim- 
ulus to  conversation ;  a  criminal  trial  was  a  kind  of 
holiday  to  a  county.  It  was  this  poverty  of  life, 
this  famine  of  social  gratification,  from  which 
sprang  their  fondness  for  the  grosser  forms  of 
excitement,  and  their  tendency  to  rough  and  brutal 
practical  joking.  In  a  life  like  theirs  a  laugh 
seemed  worth  having  at  any  expense. 

But  near  as  they  were  to  barbarism  in  all  the 
circumstances  of  their  daily  existence,  they  were 
far  from  it  politically.  They  were  the  children  of 
a  race  which  had  been  trained  in  government  for 
centuries  in  the  best  school  the  world  has  ever  seen, 
and  wherever  they  went  they  formed  the  town,  the 
county,  the  court,  and  the  legislative  power  with 
the  ease  and  certainty  of  nature  evolving  its  results. 
And  this  they  accomplished  in  the  face  of  a  savage 
foe  surrounding  their  feeble  settlements,  always 
alert  and  hostile,  invisible  and  dreadful  as  the 
visionary  powers  of  the  air.  Until  the  treaty  of 
Greenville,  in  1795,  closed  the  long  and  sanguinary 
history  of  the  old  Indian  wars,  there  was  no  day  in 
which  the  pioneer  could  leave  his  cabin  with  the 
certainty  of  not  finding  it  in  ashes  when  he  re- 
turned, and  his  little  flock  murdered  on  his  thresh- 
old, or  carried  into  a  captivity  worse  than  death. 
Whenever  nightfall  came  with  the  man  of  the 
house  away  from  home,  the  anxiety  and  care  of 
the  women  and  children  were  none  the  less  bitter 
because  so  common. 


M 


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» 
u 


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Ph 


20 


LINEAGE  21 

The  life  of  the  pioneer  Abraham  Lincoln  soon  chap,  l 
came  to  a  disastrous  close.  He  had  settled  in 
Jefferson  County,  on  the  land  he  had  bought  from 
the  Grovernment,  and  cleared  a  small  farm  in  the 
forest.^  One  morning  in  the  year  1784,  he  started  ne*. 
with  his  three  sons,  Mordecai,  Josiah,  and  Thomas, 
to  the  edge  of  the  clearing,  and  began  the  day's  work. 
A  shot  from  the  brush  killed  the  father ;  Mordecai, 
the  eldest  son,  ran  instinctively  to  the  house, 
Josiah  to  the  neighboring  fort,  for  assistance,  and 
Thomas,  the  youngest,  a  child  of  six,  was  left  with 
the  corpse  of  his  father.  Mordecai,  reaching  the 
cabin,  seized  the  rifle,  and  saw  through  the  loop- 
hole an  Indian  in  his  war-paint  stooping  to  raise 
the  child  from  the  ground.  He  took  deliberate  aim 
at  a  white  ornament  on  the  breast  of  the  savage 
and  brought  him  down.  The  little  boy,  thus  re- 
leased, ran  to  the  cabin,  and  Mordecai,  from  the 
loft,  renewed  his  fii'e  upon  the  savages,  who  began 
to  show  themselves  from  the  thicket,  until  Josiah 
returned  with  assistance  from  the  stockade,  and 
the  assailants  fled.  This  tragedy  made  an  indelible 
impression  on  the  mind  of  Mordecai.  Either  a 
spirit  of  revenge  for  his  murdered  father,  or  a 
sportsmanlike  pleasure  in  his  successful  shot,  made 
him  a  determined  Indian-stalker,  and  he  rarely 
stopped  to  inquire  whether  the  red  man  who  came 
within  range  of  his  rifle  was  friendly  or  hostile.^ 

1  Lyman  C.  Draper,  of  the  Wis-  into  captivity,  and  forced  to  run 

consin    Historical    Society,    has  the  gauntlet.     The  story  rests  on 

kindly  furnished  us  with  a  MS.  the  statement  of  a  single  person, 

account  of  a  Kentucky  tradition  Mrs.  Sarah  Graham, 

according  to  which  the  pioneer  2  Late  in  life  Mordecai  Lincoln 

Abraham  Lincoln  was  captured  removed  to  Hancock  County,  Illi- 

by  the  Indians,  near  Crow's  Sta-  nois,  where  his  descendants  still 

tion,  in  August,    1782,   carried  live. 


> 


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X 


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-«. 


Kl 


23 


LINEAGE  23 

The  head  of  the  family  being  gone,  the  widow  chap,  i, 
Lincoln  soon  removed  to  a  more  thickly  settled 
neighborhood  in  Washington  County.  There  her 
childi'en  grew  up.  Mordecai  and  Josiah  became 
reputable  citizens ;  the  two  daughters  married  two 
men  named  Crume  and  Brumfield.  Thomas,  to 
whom  were  reserved  the  honors  of  an  illustrious 
paternity,  learned  the  trade  of  a  carpenter.  He 
was  an  easy-going  man,  entirely  without  ambition, 
but  not  without  self-respect.  Though  the  friend- 
liest and  most  jovial  of  gossips,  he  was  not  insen- 
sible to  affronts;  and  when  his  slow  anger  was 
roused  he  was  a  formidable  adversary.  Several 
border  bullies,  at  different  times,  crowded  him 
indiscreetly,  and  were  promptly  and  thoroughly 
whipped.  He  was  strong,  well-knit,  and  sinewy ; 
but  little  over  the  medium  height,  though  in  other 
respects  he  seems  to  have  resembled  his  son  in  ap- 
pearance. 

On  the  12th  of  June,  1806,^  while  learning  his 
trade  in  the  carpenter  shop  of  Joseph  Hanks,  in 
Elizabethtown,  he  married  Nancy  Hanks,  a  niece 
of  his  employer,  near  Beechland,  in  Washington 
County.^    She  was  one  of  a  large  family  who  had 

1  All  previous  accounts  give  "Know  all  men  by  these  pres- 
the  date  of  this  marriage  as  Sep-  ents,  that  we,  Thomas  Lincoln 
tember  23d.  This  error  arose  and  Eichard  Berry,  are  held  and 
from  a  clerical  blunder  in  the  firmly  bound  unto  his  Excellency, 
county  record  of  marriages.  The  the  Governor  of  Kentucky,  in  the 
minister,  the  Rev.  Jesse  Head,  in  just  and  full  sum  of  fifty  pounds 
making  his  report,  wrote  the  date  current  money,  to  the  payment  of 
before  the  names;  the  clerk,  in  which  well  and  truly  to  be  made  to 
copying  it,  lost  the  proper  se-  the  said  Governor  and  his  succes- 
quence  of  the  entries,  and  gave  to  sors,  we  bind  ourselves,  our  heirs, 
the  Lincolns  the  date  belonging  etc.,  jointly  and  severally,  firmly 
to  the  next  couple  on  the  list.  by  these  presents,  sealed  with  our 

2  The  following  is  a  copy  of  the  seals  and  dated  this  10th  day  of 
marriage  bond:  June,   1806.     The  condition  of 


24  ABKAHAM    LINCOLN 

Chap.  I.  emigrated  from  Virginia  with  the  Lincolns  and 
with  another  family  called  Sparrow.  They  had 
endured  together  the  trials  of  pioneer  life;  their 
close  relations  continued  for  many  years  after, 
and  were  cemented  by  frequent  intermarriage. 

Mrs.  Lincoln's  mother  was  named  Lucy  Hanks  ; 
her  sisters  were  Betty,  Polly,  and  Nancy  who 
married  Thomas  Sparrow,  Jesse  Friend,  and  Levi 
Hall.  The  childhood  of  Nancy  was  passed  with 
the  Sparrows,  and  she  was  oftener  called  by  their 
name  than  by  her  own.  The  whole  family  connec- 
tion was  composed  of  people  so  little  given  to  let- 
ters that  it  is  hard  to  determine  the  proper  names 
and  relationships  of  the  younger  members  amid 
the  tangle  of  traditional  cousinships.^  Those  who 
went  to  Indiana  with  Thomas  Lincoln,  and  grew 
up  with  his  children,  are  the  only  ones  that  need 
demand  our  attention. 

There  was  no  hint  of  f  utui'e  glory  in  the  wedding 
or  the  bringing  home  of  Nancy  Lincoln.  All 
accounts  represent  her  as  a  handsome  young 
woman  of  twenty-thi'ee,  of  appearance  and  intel- 
lect superior  to  her  lowly  fortunes.  She  could 
read  and  write, —  a  remarkable  accomplishment  in 
her  circle, —  and  even  taught  her  husband  to  form 
the  letters  of  his  name.    He  had  no  such  valuable 

the  above  obligation  is  such  that  "  Witness,   John  H.  Pakrott, 

whereas    there    is    a    marriage  Guardian." 

shortly    intended    between    the  Richard  Berry  was  a  connection 

above  bound  Thomas  Lincoln  and  of  Lincoln ;  his  wife  was  a  Shipley. 

Nancy  Hanks,  for  which  a  license  i  The  Hanks  family  seem   to 

has  issued,  now  if  there  be  no  have    gone    from    Pennsylvania 

lawful  cause  to  obstruct  the  said  and    thence  to  Kentucky  about 

marriage,  then  this  obligation  to  the  same  time  with  the  Lincolns. 

be  void,  else  to  remain  in  full  They  also  belonged  to  the  Com- 

force  and  virtue  in  law.  munion  of  Friends. — "Historical 

Thomas  Lincoln  [Seal].  Collections  of  Gwynnedd,"  by  H. 

EiCHARD  Bekey  [Seal].  M.  Jenkins. 


LINEAGE  25 

wedding  gift  to  bestow  upon  her ;  he  brought  her  to  chap.  i. 
a  little  house  in  Elizabethtown,  where  he  and  she 
and  want  dwelt  together  in  fourteen  feet  square. 
The  next  year  a  daughter  was  born  to  them ;  and 
the  next  the  young  carpenter,  not  finding  his  work 
remunerative  enough  for  his  growing  needs,  re- 
moved to  a  little  farm  which  he  had  bought  on  the 
easy  terms  then  prevalent  in  Kentucky.  It  was  on 
the  Big  South  Fork  of  Nolin  Creek,  in  what  was 
then  Hardin  and  is  now  La  Rue  County,  three 
miles  from  Hodgensville.  The  ground  had  nothing 
attractive  about  it  but  its  cheapness.  It  was  hardly 
more  grateful  than  the  rocky  hill  slopes  of  New 
England.  It  required  full  as  earnest  and  intelli- 
gent industry  to  persuade  a  living  out  of  those 
barren  hillocks  and  weedy  hollows,  covered  with 
stunted  and  scrubby  underbrush,  as  it  would  amid 
the  rocks  and  sands  of  the  northern  coast. 

Thomas  Lincoln  settled  down  in  this  dismal  soli- 
tude to  a  deeper  poverty  than  any  of  his  name  had 
ever  known ;  and  there,  in  the  midst  of  the  most 
unpromising  circumstances  that  ever  witnessed  the 
advent  of  a  hero  into  this  world,  Abraham  Lincoln 
was  born  on  the  12th  day  of  February,  1809.  1809. 

Four  years  later,  Thomas  Lincoln  purchased  a 
fine  farm  of  238  acres  on  Knob  Creek,  near  where 
it  flows  into  the  Rolling  Fork,  and  succeeded  in 
getting  a  portion  of  it  into  cultivation.  The  title, 
however,  remained  in  him  only  a  little  while,  and 
after  his  property  had  passed  out  of  his  control  he 
looked  about  for  another  place  to  estabhsh  himself. 

Of  all  these  years  of  Abraham  Lincoln's  early 
childhood  we  know  almost  nothing.  He  lived  a 
solitary  life  in  the  woods,  returning  from  his  lone- 


^^"'I^T^^t^'^ 


'#^' 


^-dSpp^^' 


^■^ 


i 


f 


)!IIIWBWWB^'^*JiW>iPWJ;.<!y/;VJPJ!*U4)^^^  WIU1I> 


^ 
4 


/ip 


^_  -.-- -  - ii!>ff-'uiiijiim»a>giim— >i 

TbiB  Certificate,  or  Marriage  List  (here  shown  in  reduced  fac-simile).  written  by  the 

Kev.  Jesse  Head,  was  lost  sight  of  for  many  years,  and  about  1886  was  discovered 

through  the  eflforte  of  W.  F.  Booker,  CTerk  of  Washington  County,  Kentucky. 

26 


LINEAGE  27 

some  little  games  to  his  cheerless  home.  He  never  chap.  i. 
talked  of  these  days  to  his  most  intimate  friends.^ 
Once,  when  asked  what  he  remembered  about  the 
war  with  Great  Britain,  he  replied :  "  Nothing  but 
this.  I  had  been  fishing  one  day  and  caught  a  little 
fish  which  I  was  taking  home.  I  met  a  soldier 
in  the  road,  and,  having  been  always  told  at  home 
that  we  must  be  good  to  the  soldiers,  I  gave  him 
my  fish."  This  is  only  a  faint  glimpse,  but  what  it 
shows  is  rather  pleasant  —  the  generous  child  and 
the  patriotic  household.  But  there  is  no  question 
that  these  first  years  of  his  life  had  their  lasting 
effect  upon  the  temperament  of  this  great  mirthful 
and  melancholy  man.  He  had  little  schooling. 
He  accompanied  his  sister  Sarah  ^  to  the  only  schools 
that  existed  in  their  neighborhood,  one  kept  by 
Zachariah  Riney,  another  by  Caleb  Hazel,  where 
he  learned  his  alphabet  and  a  little  more.  But  of 
all  those  advantages  for  the  cultivation  of  a  young 
mind  and  spirit  which  every  home  now  offers  to  its 
children,  the  books,  toys,  ingenious  games,  and 
daily  devotion  of  parental  love,  he  knew  absolutely 
nothing. 

iThereisstillliving(1886)near  of  partridges ;  in  trying  to  "coon" 
Knob  Creek  in  Kentucky,  at  the  across  Knob  Creek  on  a  log,  Lin- 
age of  eighty,  a  man  who  claims  coin  fell  in  and  Gollaher  fished 
to  have  known  Abraham  Lincoln  him  out  with  a  sycamore  branch 
in  his  childhood  —  Austin  Golla-  — a  service  to  the  Republic,  the 
her.  He  says  he  used  to  play  value  of  which  it  would  be  diffi- 
with  Abe  Lincoln  in  the  shavings  cult  to  compute, 
of  his  father's  carpenter  shop.  2  This  daughter  of  Thomas  Lin- 
He  tells  a  story  which,  if  accurate,  coin  is  sometimes  called  Nancy 
entitles  him  to  the  civic  crown  and  sometimes  Sarah.  She  seems 
which  the  Romans  used  to  give  to  have  borne  the  former  name 
to  one  who  saved  the  life  of  a  during  her  mother's  life-time,  and 
citizen.  When  Gollaher  was  to  have  taken  her  stepmother's 
eleven  and  Lincoln  eight  the  two  name  after  Mr.  Lincoln's  second 
boys  were  in  the  woods  in  pursuit  marriage. 


CHAPTER    II 

INDIANA 

Chap.  II.  T)Y  the  time  the  boy  Abraham  had  attained  his 
1^6.  J3  seventh  year,  the  social  condition  of  Ken- 
tucky had  changed  considerably  from  the  early 
pioneer  days.  Life  had  assumed  a  more  settled 
and  orderly  course.  The  old  barbarous  equality 
of  the  earlier  time  was  gone;  a  difference  of  classes 
began  to  be  seen.  Those  who  held  slaves  assumed 
a  distinct  social  superiority  over  those  who  did  not. 
Thomas  Lincoln,  concluding  that  Kentucky  was  no 
country  for  a  poor  man,  determined  to  seek  his 
fortune  in  Indiana.  He  had  heard  of  rich  and  un- 
occupied lands  in  Perry  County  in  that  State,  and 
thither  he  determined  to  go.  He  built  a  rude  raft, 
loaded  it  with  his  kit  of  tools  and  four  hundred 
gallons  of  whisky,  and  trusted  his  fortunes  to  the 
winding  water-courses.  He  met  with  only  one 
accident  on  his  way :  his  raft  capsized  in  the  Ohio 
River,  but  he  fished  up  his  kit  of  tools  and  most  of 
the  ardent  spirits,  and  arrived  safely  at  the  place 
of  a  settler  named  Posey,  with  whom  he  left  his 
odd  invoice  of  household  goods  for  the  wilderness, 
while  he  started  on  foot  to  look  for  a  home  in  the 
dense  forest.  He  selected  a  spot  which  pleased 
him  in  his  first  day's  journey.    He  then  walked 

28 


INDIANA  29 

back  to  Knob  Creek  and  brought  his  family  on  to  chap.  ii. 
their  new  home.  No  humbler  cavalcade  ever  in- 
vaded the  Indiana  timber.  Besides  his  wife  and 
two  children,  his  earthly  possessions  were  of  the 
slightest,  for  the  backs  of  two  borrowed  horses 
sufficed  for  the  load.  Insufficient  bedding  and 
clothing,  a  few  pans  and  kettles,  were  their  sole 
movable  wealth.  They  relied  on  Lincoln's  kit  of 
tools  for  their  furniture,  and  on  his  rifle  for  their 
food.  At  Posey's  they  hired  a  wagon  and  literally 
hewed  a  path  through  the  wilderness  to  their  new 
habitation  near  Little  Pigeon  Creek,  a  mile  and  a 
half  east  of  Gentryville,  in  a  rich  and  fertile  forest 
country. 

Thomas  Lincoln,  with  the  assistance  of  his  wife 
and  children,  built  a  temporary  shelter  of  the  sort 
called  in  the  frontier  language  "a  half -faced  camp" ; 
merely  a  shed  of  poles,  which  defended  the  inmates 
on  three  sides  from  foul  weather,  but  left  them  open 
to  its  inclemency  in  front.  For  a  whole  year  his 
family  lived  in  this  wretched  fold,  while  he  was 
clearing  a  little  patch  of  ground  for  planting  corn, 
and  building  a  rough  cabin  for  a  permanent  resi- 
dence. They  moved  into  the  latter  before  it  was 
half  completed ;  for  by  this  time  the  Sparrows  had 
followed  the  Lincolns  from  Kentucky,  and  the 
half-faced  camp  was  given  up  to  them.  But  the 
rude  cabin  seemed  so  spacious  and  comfortable 
after  the  squalor  of  "  the  camp,"  that  Thomas  Lin- 
coln did  no  further  work  on  it  for  a  long  time.  He 
left  it  for  a  year  or  two  without  doors,  or  windows, 
or  floor.  The  battle  for  existence  allowed  him  no 
time  for  such  superfluities.  He  raised  enough 
corn  to  support  life  j  the  dense  forest  around  him 


30  ABKAHAM    LINCOLN 

Chap.  II.  abounded  in  every  form  of  feathered  game ;  a  little 
way  from  his  cabin  an  open  glade  was  full  of  deer- 
licks,  and  an  hour  or  two  of  idle  waiting  was 
generally  rewarded  by  a  shot  at  a  fine  deer,  which 
would  furnish  meat  for  a  week,  and  material  for 
breeches  and  shoes.  His  cabin  was  like  that  of  other 
pioneers.  A  few  three-legged  stools;  a  bedstead 
made  of  poles  stuck  between  the  logs  in  the  angle 
of  the  cabin,  the  outside  corner  supported  by  a 
crotched  stick  driven  into  the  ground ;  the  table,  a 
huge  hewed  log  standing  on  four  legs ;  a  pot,  kettle, 
and  skillet,  and  a  few  tin  and,  pewter  dishes  were 
all  the  furniture.  The  boy  Abraham  climbed  at 
night  to  his  bed  of  leaves  in  the  loft,  by  a  ladder  of 
wooden  pins  driven  into  the  logs. 

This  life  has  been  vaunted  by  poets  and  roman- 
cers as  a  happy  and  healthful  one.  Even  Dennis 
Hanks,  speaking  of  his  youthful  days  when  his 
only  home  was  the  half-faced  camp,  says,  "I  tell 
you,  Billy,  I  enjoyed  myself  better  then  than  I  ever 
have  since."  But  we  may  distrust  the  reminiscences 
of  old  settlers,  who  see  their  youth  in  the  flattering 
light  of  distance.  The  life  was  neither  enjoyable 
nor  wholesome.  The  rank  woods  were  full  of  ma- 
laria, and  singular  epidemics  from  time  to  time 
ravaged  the  settlements.  In  the  autumn  of  1818 
the  little  community  of  Pigeon  Creek  was  almost 
exterminated  by  a  frightful  pestilence  called  the 
milk-sickness,  or,  in  the  dialect  of  the  country,  "the 
milk-sick."  It  is  a  mysterious  disease  which  has 
been  the  theme  of  endless  wrangling  among  West- 
ern physicians,  and  the  difficulty  of  ascertaining 
anything  about  it  has  been  greatly  increased  by  the 
local  sensitiveness  which  forbids  any  one  to  admit 


INDIANA  31 

that  any  well-defined  case  has  ever  been  seen  in  his  chap.  ii. 
neighborhood,  "  although  just  over  the  creek  (or  in 
the  next  county)  they  have  had  it  bad."  It  seems 
to  have  been  a  malignant  form  of  fever  —  attributed 
variously  to  malaria  and  to  the  eating  of  poisonous 
herbs  by  the  cattle  —  attacking  cattle  as  well  as 
human  beings,  attended  with  violent  retching  and 
a  burning  sensation  in  the  stomach,  often  ter- 
minating fatally  on  the  third  day.  In  many  cases 
those  who  apparently  recovered  lingered  for  years 
with  health  seriously  impaired.  Among  the 
Pioneers  of  Pigeon  Creek,  so  ill-fed,  ill-housed,  and 
uncared  for,  there  was  little  prospect  of  recovery 
from  such  a  grave  disorder.  The  Sparrows,  hus- 
band and  wife,  died  early  in  October,  and  Nancy 
Hanks  Lincoln  followed  them  after  an  interval  of 
a  few  days.  Thomas  Lincoln  made  the  coffins  for 
his  dead  "  out  of  green  lumber  cut  with  a  whip- 
saw,"  and  they  were  aU  buried,  with  scant  ceremony, 
in  a  little  clearing  of  the  forest.  It  is  related  of 
young  Abraham,  that  he  sorrowed  most  of  all  that 
his  mother  should  have  been  laid  away  with  such 
maimed  rites,  and  that  he  contrived  several  months 
later  to  have  a  wandering  preacher  named  David 
Elkin  brought  to  the  settlement,  to  deliver  a  funeral 
sermon  over  her  grave,  already  white  with  the  early 
winter  snows.^ 

This  was  the  dreariest  winter  of  his  life,  for 
before  the  next  December  came  his  father  had 
brought  from  Kentucky  a  new  wife,  who  was  to 

1  A  stone  has  been  placed  over  Hanks  Lincoln,  mother  of  Presi- 
the  site  of  the  grave  by  P.  E.  dent  Lincoln,  died  October  5th, 
Studebaker,  of  South  Bend,  In-  A.  D,  1818,  aged  35  years, 
diana.  The  stone  bears  the  Erected  by  a  friend  of  her  mar- 
following  inscription:      "Nancy  tyred  son,  1879." 


32  ABKAHAM    LINCOLN 

Chap.  II.  change  the  lot  of  all  the  desolate  little  family  very- 
much  for  the  better.  Sarah  Bush  had  been  an 
acquaintance  of  Thomas  Lincoln  before  his  first 
marriage ;  she  had,  it  is  said,  rejected  him  to  marry 
one  Johnston,  the  jailer  at  Elizabethtown,  who  had 
died,  leaving  her  with  three  children,  a  boy  and  two 
girls.  When  Lincoln's  widowhood  had  lasted  a 
year,  he  went  down  to  Elizabethtown  to  begin 
again  the  wooing  broken  off  so  many  years  before. 
He  wasted  no  time  in  preliminaries,  but  promptly 
made  his  wishes  known,  and  the  next  morning 
they  were  married.  It  was  growing  late  in  the 
autumn,  and  the  pioneer  probably  dreaded  another 
lonely  winter  on  Pigeon  Creek.  Mrs.  Johnston  was 
not  altogether  portionless.  She  had  a  store  of 
household  goods  which  filled  a  four-horse  wagon 
borrowed  of  Ralph  Crume,  Thomas  Lincoln's 
brother-in-law,  to  transport  the  bride  to  Indiana. 
It  took  little  time  for  this  energetic  and  honest 
Christian  woman  to  make  her  influence  felt,  even 
in  those  discouraging  surroundings,  and  Thomas 
Lincoln  and  the  children  were  the  better  for  her 
coming  all  the  rest  of  their  lives.  The  lack  of 
doors  and  floors  was  at  once  corrected.  Her  honest 
pride  inspired  her  husband  to  gi^eater  thrift  and 
industry.  The  goods  she  brought  with  her  com- 
pelled some  effort  at  harmony  in  the  other  fittings 
of  the  house.  She  dressed  the  children  in  warmer 
clothing  and  put  them  to  sleep  in  comfortable  beds. 
With  this  slight  addition  to  their  resources  the  fam- 
ily were  much  improved  in  appearance,  behavior, 
and  self-respect. 

Thomas  Lincoln  joined  the  Baptist  church  at 
1823.       Little  Pigeon  in  1823  ;  his  oldest  child,  Sarah,  fol- 


Ilil  iil 

ljll|t|)!:l|;ii:|!:  - 


t!li;M:;i;i:i<n|i::ii:^!;:;M::i;tRltliiiiii:ii;imiiit''il!"Il!M)r:il 


l>ii!!i!)l;U!;nt!lUI!!!i!|l:!if;l.UttillM!l:t!Ji;ii:iii|li;|!im 


f^^ 


SARAH    BUSH    LINCOLN    AT    THE    AGli    OF    SEVENTY-SIX. 


THE  [\'"'m 

OF  THE 

l!?!!VEnS!:V  Gr  JLL!NO!S 


INDIANA  33 

lowed  his  example  three  years  later.    They  were  chap.  ii. 
known  as  active  and  consistent  members  of  that 
communion.  Lincoln  was  himself  a  good  carpenter  ^  ^-Jf^*®'' 
when  he  chose  to  work  at  his  trade ;  a  walnut  table  t!^v.  Rob- 
made  by  him  is  still  preserved  as  part  of  the  furni-  ^tor*'°f  wfe^' 


Little 


ture  of  the  church  to  which  he  belonged.  pigeon 

Such  a  woman  as  Sarah  Bush  could  not  be  care-  church, 
less  of  so  important  a  matter  as  the  education  of 
her  children,  and  they  made  the  best  use  of  the 
scanty  opportunities  the  neighborhood  afforded. 
"  It  was  a  wild  region,"  writes  Mr.  Lincoln,  in  one 
of  those  rare  bits  of  autobiography  which  he  left 
behind  him,  "  with  many  bears  and  other  wild  ani- 
mals still  in  the  woods.  There  were  some  schools 
so-called,  but  no  qualification  was  ever  required  of 
a  teacher  beyond  '  readin',  writin',  and  cipherin'  to 
the  Rule  of  Three.'  If  a  straggler  supposed  to 
understand  Latin  happened  to  sojourn  in  the 
neighborhood,  he  was  looked  upon  as  a  wizard. 
There  was  absolutely  nothing  to  excite  ambition 
for  education."  But  in  the  case  of  this  ungainly 
boy  there  was  no  necessity  of  any  external  incen- 
tive. A  thirst  for  knowledge  as  a  means  of  rising 
in  the  world  was  innate  in  him.  It  had  nothing 
to  do  with  that  love  of  science  for  its  own  sake 
which  has  been  so  often  seen  in  lowly  savants,  who 
have  sacrificed  their  lives  to  the  pure  desire  of 
knowing  the  works  of  God.  All  the  little  learning 
he  ever  acquired  he  seized  as  a  tool  to  better  his 
condition.  He  learned  his  letters  that  he  might 
read  books  and  see  how  men  in  the  great  world 
outside  of  his  woods  had  borne  themselves  in  the 
fight  for  which  he  longed.  He  learned  to  write, 
first,  that  he  might  have  an  accomplishment  his 
Vol.  I.— 3 


34  ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

Chap.  II.  playmates  had  not ;  then  that  he  might  help  his 
elders  by  writing  their  letters,  and  enjoy  the  feel- 
ing of  usefulness  which  this  gave  him ;  and  finally 
that  he  might  copy  what  struck  him  in  his  reading 
and  thus  make  it  his  own  for  future  use.  He 
learned  to  cipher  certainly  from  no  love  of  mathe- 
matics, but  because  it  might  come  in  play  in  some 
more  congenial  business  than  the  farm-work  which 
bounded  the  horizon  of  his  contemporaries.  Had 
it  not  been  for  that  interior  spur  which  kept  his 
clear  spirit  at  its  task,  his  schools  could  have  done 
little  for  him ;  for,  counting  his  attendance  under 
Einey  and  Hazel  in  Kentucky,  and  under  Dorsey, 
Crawford,  and  Swaney  in  Indiana,  it  amounted  to 
less  than  a  year  in  all.  The  schools  were  much 
alike.  Thev  were  held  in  deserted  cabins  of  round 
logs,  with  earthen  floors,  and  small  holes  for  win- 
dows, sometimes  illuminated  by  as  much  light  as 
could  penetrate  through  panes  of  paper  greased 
with  lard.  The  teachers  were  usually  in  keeping 
with  their  primitive  surroundings.  The  profession 
offered  no  rewards  sufficient  to  attract  men  of  edu- 
cation or  capacity.  After  a  few  months  of  desultory 
instruction  young  Abraham  knew  all  that  these 
vagrant  literati  could  teach  him.  His  last  school- 
days were  passed  with  one  Swaney  in  1826,  who 
taught  at  a  distance  of  four  and  a  half  miles  from 
the  Lincoln  cabin.  The  nine  miles  of  walking 
doubtless  seemed  to  Thomas  Lincoln  a  waste  of 
time,  and  the  lad  was  put  at  steady  work  and  saw 
no  more  of  school. 

But  it  is  questionable  whether  he  lost  anything 
by  being  deprived  of  the  ministrations  of  the  back- 
woods dominies.   When  his  tasks  ended,  his  studies 


INDIANA  35 

became  the  chief  pleasure  of  his  life.  In  all  the  chap.  ii. 
intervals  of  his  work  —  in  which  he  never  took 
delight,  knowing  well  enough  that  he  was  born  for 
something  better  than  that  —  he  read,  wrote,  and 
ciphered  incessantly.  His  reading  was  naturally 
limited  by  his  opportunities,  for  books  were  among 
the  rarest  of  luxuries  in  that  region  and  time.  But 
he  read  everything  he  could  lay  his  hands  upon, 
and  he  was  certainly  fortunate  in  the  few  books  of 
which  he  became  the  possessor.  It  would  hardly 
be  possible  to  select  a  better  handful  of  classics  for 
a  youth  in  his  circumstances  than  the  few  volumes 
he  turned  with  a  nightly  and  daily  hand  —  the 
Bible,  "^sop's  Fables,"  "  Robinson  Crusoe,"  "The 
Pilgrim's  Progress,"  a  history  of  the  United 
States,  and  Weem's  "  Life  of  Washington."  These 
were  the  best,  and  these  he  read  over  and  over  till 
he  knew  them  almost  by  heart.  But  his  voracity 
for  anything  printed  was  insatiable.  He  would  sit 
in  the  twilight  and  read  a  dictionary  as  long  as  he 
could  see.  He  used  to  go  to  David  Turnham's,  the 
town  constable,  and  devour  the  "  Revised  Statutes 
of  Indiana,"  as  boys  in  our  day  do  the  "Three 
Guardsmen."  Of  the  books  he  did  not  own  he  took 
voluminous  notes,  filling  his  copy-book  with  choice 
extracts,  and  poring  over  them  until  they  were 
fixed  in  his  memory.  He  could  not  afford  to  waste 
paper  upon  his  original  compositions.  He  would 
sit  by  the  fire  at  night  and  cover  the  wooden  shovel 
with  essays  and  arithmetical  exercises,  which  he 
would  shave  off  and  then  begin  again.  It  is  touch- 
ing to  think  of  this  great-spirited  child,  battling  year 
after  year  against  his  evil  star,  wasting  his  ingenu- 
ity upon  devices  and  makeshifts,  his  high  intelli- 


36  ABEAHAM    LINCOLN 

Chap.  II.  gencG  starving  for  want  of  the  simple  appliances  of 
education  that  are  now  offered  gratis  to  the  poorest 
and  most  indifferent.  He  did  a  man's  work  from 
the  time  he  left  school ;  his  strength  and  stature 
were  already  far  beyond  those  of  ordinary  men. 
He  wrought  his  appointed  tasks  ungi'udgingly, 
though  without  enthusiasm;  but  when  his  em- 
ployer's day  was  over,  his  own  began. 

John  Hanks  says :  "  When  Abe  and  I  returned 
to  the  house  from  work  he  would  go  to  the  cup- 
w  H.      board,  snatch  a  piece  of  corn-bread,  take  down  a 
'^Life^Sf     book,  sit  down,  cock  his  legs  up  as  high  as  his 
'pfa??'     head,  and  read."    The  picture  may  be  lacking  in 
grace,  but  its  truthfulness  is  beyond  question.   The 
habit  remained  with  him  always.     Some  of  his 
greatest  work  in  later  years  was  done  in  this  gro- 
tesque Western  fashion, —  "  sitting  on  his  shoulder- 
blades." 

Otherwise  his  life  at  this  time  differed  little 
from  that  of  ordinary  farm-hands.  His  great 
strength  and  intelligence  made  him  a  valuable 
laborer,  and  his  unfailing  good  temper  and  flow  of 
rude  rustic  wit  rendered  him  the  most  agreeable  of 
comrades.  He  was  always  ready  with  some  kindly 
act  or  word  for  others.  Once  he  saved  the  life  of 
the  town  drunkard,  whom  he  found  freezing  by  the 
roadside,  by  carrying  him  in  his  strong  arms  to 
the  tavern,  and  working  over  him  until  he  revived. 
It  is  a  curious  fact  that  this  act  of  common  human- 
ity was  regarded  as  something  remarkable  in  the 
neighborhood ;  the  grateful  sot  himself  always 
said  "  it  was  mighty  clever  of  Abe  to  tote  me  so 
far  that  cold  night."  It  was  also  considered  an 
eccentricity  that  he  hated  and  preached  against 


INDIANA  37 

cruelty  to  animals.  Some  of  his  comrades  remem-  chap.  ii. 
ber  still  his  bursts  of  righteous  wrath,  when  a  boy, 
against  the  wanton  murder  of  turtles  and  other 
creatures.  He  was  evidently  of  better  and  finer 
clay  than  his  fellows,  even  in  those  wild  and  igno- 
rant days.  At  home  he  was  the  life  of  the  singularly 
assorted  household,  which  consisted,  besides  his  par- 
ents and  himself,  of  his  own  sister,  Mrs.  Lincoln's 
two  girls  and  boy,  Dennis  Hanks,  the  legacy  of  the 
dying  Sparrow  family,  and  John  Hanks  (son  of  the 
carpenter  Joseph  with  whom  Thomas  Lincoln 
learned  his  trade),  who  came  from  Kentucky 
several  years  after  the  others.  It  was  probably  as 
much  the  inexhaustible  good  nature  and  kindly 
helpfulness  of  young  Abraham  which  kept  the 
peace  among  all  these  heterogeneous  elements, 
effervescing  with  youth  and  confined  in  a  one- 
roomed  cabin,  as  it  was  the  Christian  sweetness  and 
firmness  of  the  woman  of  the  house.  It  was  a 
happy  and  united  household  :  brothers  and  sisters 
and  cousins  living  peacefully  under  the  gentle  rule 
of  the  good  stepmother,  but  all  acknowledging  from 
a  very  early  period  the  supremacy  in  goodness  and 
cleverness  of  their  big  brother  Abraham.  Mrs. 
Lincoln,  not  long  before  her  death,  gave  striking 
testimony  of  his  winning  and  loyal  character.  She 
said  to  Mr.  Herndon :  "  I  can  say,  what  scarcely  ^^"9°' 
one  mother  in  a  thousand  can  say,  Abe  never  gave 
me  a  cross  word  or  look,  and  never  refused  in  fact 
or  appearance  to  do  anything  I  asked  him.  His 
mind  and  mine — what  little  I  had — seemed  to  run 
together.  ...  I  had  a  son  John,  who  was  raised 
with  Abe.  Both  were  good  boys,  but  I  must  say, 
both  now  being  dead,  that  Abe  was  the  best  boy  I 


38  ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

Chap.  II.  ever  saw  or  expect  to  see."  Such  were  the  begin- 
nings of  this  remarkable  career,  sacred  as  we 
see  from  childhood,  to  duty  and  to  human  kind- 
liness. 

We  are  making  no  claim  of  early  saintship  for 
him.  He  was  merely  a  good  boy,  with  sufficient 
wickedness  to  prove  his  humanity.  One  of  his 
employers,  undazzled  by  recent  history,  faithfully 
remembers  that  young  Abe  liked  his  dinner  and 
his  pay  better  than  his  work :  there  is  surely  noth- 
ing alien  to  ordinary  mortality  in  this.  It  is  also 
reported  that  he  sometimes  impeded  the  celerity  of 
harvest  operations  by  making  burlesque  speeches, 
or  worse  than  that,  comic  sermons,  from  the  top  of 
some  tempting  stump,  to  the  delight  of  the  hired 
hands  and  the  exasperation  of  the  farmer.  His 
budding  talents  as  a  writer  were  not  always  used 
discreetly.  He  was  too  much  given  to  scribbling 
coarse  satires  and  chronicles,  in  prose,  and  in  some- 
thing which  had  to  him  and  his  friends  the  air  of 
verse.  From  this  arose  occasional  heart-bm'nings 
and  feuds,  in  which  Abraham  bore  his  part  accord- 
ing to  the  custom  of  the  country.  Despite  his 
Quaker  ancestry  and  his  natural  love  of  peace,  he 
was  no  non-resistant,  and  when  he  once  entered 
upon  a  quarrel  the  opponent  usually  had  the  worst 
of  it.  But  he  was  generous  and  placable,  and  some 
of  his  best  friends  were  those  with  whom  he  had 
had  differences,  and  had  settled  them  in  the  way 
then  prevalent, — in  a  ring  of  serious  spectators, 
calmly  and  judicially  ruminant,  under  the  shade  of 
some  spreading  oak,  at  the  edge  of  the  timber. 

Before  we  close  our  sketch  of  this  period  of 
Lincoln's  life,  it  may  not  be  amiss  to  glance  for  a 


INDIANA  39 

moment  at  the  state  of  society  among  the  people    chap.  ii. 
with  whom  his  lot  was  cast  in  these  important 
years. 

In  most  respects  there  had  been  little  moral  or 
material  improvement  since  the  early  settlement 
of  the  country.  Their  houses  were  usually  of  one 
room,  built  of  round  logs  with  the  bark  on.  We 
have  known  a  man  to  gain  the  sobriquet  of  "  Split- 
log  Mitchell "  by  indulging  in  the  luxmy  of  build- 
ing a  cabin  of  square-hewn  timbers.  Their  dress 
was  still  mostly  of  tanned  deer-hide,  a  material  to 
the  last  degree  uncomfortable  when  the  wearer  was 
caught  in  a  shower.  Their  shoes  were  of  the  same, 
and  a  good  Western  authority  calls  a  wet  moccasin 
"  a  decent  way  of  going  barefoot."  About  the  time, 
however,  when  Lincoln  grew  to  manhood,  garments 
of  wool  and  of  tow  began  to  be  worn,  dyed  with 
the  juice  of  the  butternut  or  white  walnut,  and  the 
hides  of  neat-cattle  began  to  be  tanned.  But  for  a 
good  while  it  was  only  the  women  who  indulged  in 
these  novelties.  There  was  little  public  worship. 
Occasionally  an  itinerant  preacher  visited  a  county, 
and  the  settlers  for  miles  around  would  go  nearly 
in  mass  to  the  meeting.  If  a  man  was  possessed 
of  a  wagon,  the  family  rode  luxuriously ;  but  as  a 
rule  the  men  walked  and  the  women  went  on  horse- 
back with  the  little  children  in  their  arms.  It  was 
considered  no  violation  of  the  sanctities  of  the  oc- 
casion to  carry  a  rifle  and  take  advantage  of  any 
game  which  might  be  stirring  during  the  long  walk. 
Arriving  at  the  place  of  meeting,  which  was  some 
log  cabin  if  the  weather  was  foul,  or  the  shade  of 
a  tree  if  it  was  fair,  the  assembled  worshipers  threw 
their  provisions  into  a  common  store  and  picnicked 


40  ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

Chap.  11.  in  neighborly  companionship.  The  preacher  would 
then  take  off  his  coat,  and  go  at  his  work  with  an 
energy  unknown  to  our  days. 

There  were  few  other  social  meetings.  Men  came 
together  for  "  raisings,"  where  a  house  was  built  in 
a  day;  for  "  log-rollings,"  where  tons  of  excellent 
timber  were  piled  together  and  wastefully  burned; 
for  wolf -hunts,  where  a  tall  pole  was  erected  in  the 
midst  of  a  prairie  or  clearing,  and  a  great  circle  of 
hunters  formed  around  it,  sometimes  of  miles  in 
diameter,  which,  gradually  contracting  with  shouts 
and  yells,  di-ove  all  the  game  in  the  woods  together 
at  the  pole  for  slaughter;  and  for  horse-races, 
which  bore  little  resemblance  to  those  magnificent 
exhibitions  which  are  the  boast  of  Kentucky  at 
this  time.  In  these  affairs  the  women  naturally 
took  no  part ;  but  weddings,  which  were  entertain- 
ments scarcely  less  rude  and  boisterous,  were  their 
own  peculiar  province.  These  festivities  lasted 
rarely  less  than  twenty-four  hours.  The  guests  as- 
sembled in  the  morning.  There  was  a  race  for  the 
whisky  bottle  ;  a  midday  dinner ;  an  afternoon  of 
rough  games  and  outrageous  practical  jokes ;  a  sup- 
per and  dance  at  night,  interrupted  by  the  successive 
withdrawals  of  the  bride  and  of  the  gi'oom,  attended 
with  ceremonies  and  jests  of  more  than  Rabelaisian 
crudeness ;  and  a  noisy  dispersal  next  day. 

The  one  point  at  which  they  instinctively  clung 
to  civilization  was  their  regard  for  law  and  rever- 
ence for  courts  of  justice.    Yet  these  were  of  the 
simplest  character  and  totally  devoid  of  any  ad- 
smiS',      ventitious    accessories.      An    early  jurist  of  the 
indfana     couutry  writcs :  "I  was  Circuit  Prosecuting  At- 
p.%ii      torney  at  the  time  of  the  trials  at  the  falls  of  Fall 


INDIANA  41 

Creek,  where  Pendleton  now  stands.  Four  of  the  chap,  il 
prisoners  were  convicted  of  murder,  and  three  of 
them  hung,  for  killing  Indians.  The  court  was  held 
in  a  double  log  cabin,  the  gi-and  jury  sat  upon  a 
log  in  the  woods,  and  the  foreman  signed  the  bills 
of  indictment,  which  I  had  prepared,  upon  his  knee; 
there  was  not  a  petit  juror  that  had  shoes  on  ;  all 
wore  moccasins,  and  were  belted  around  the  waist, 
and  carried  side-knives  used  by  the  hunters."  Yet 
amidst  all  this  apparent  savagery  we  see  justice  was 
done,  and  the  law  vindicated  even  against  the 
bitterest  prejudices  of  these  pioneer  jurymen. 

They  were  full  of  strange  superstitions.  The 
belief  in  witchcraft  had  long  ago  passed  away  with 
the  smoke  of  the  fagots  from  old  and  New  England, 
but  it  survived  far  into  this  century  in  Kentucky 
and  the  lower  halves  of  Indiana  and  Illinois  — 
touched  with  a  peculiar  tinge  of  African  magic. 
The  pioneers  believed  in  it  for  good  and  evil.  Their 
veterinary  practice  was  mostly  by  charms  and  in- 
cantations; and  when  a  person  believed  himself 
bewitched,  a  shot  at  the  image  of  the  witch  with  a 
bullet  melted  out  of  a  half-dollar  was  the  favorite 
curative  agency.  Luck  was  an  active  divinity  in 
their  apprehension,  powerful  for  blessing  or  bane, 
announced  by  homely  signs,  to  be  placated  by 
quaint  ceremonies.  A  dog  crossing  the  hunter's 
path  spoiled  his  day,  unless  he  instantly  hooked 
his  little  fingers  together,  and  pulled  till  the  animal 
disappeared.  They  were  familiar  with  the  ever-  ^pfuf* 
recurring  mystification  of  the  witch-hazel,  or  divin- 
ing-rod ;  and  the  "cure  by  faith"  was  as  well  known 
to  them  as  it  has  since  become  in  a  more  sophisti- 
cated state  of  society.    The  commonest  occurrences 


42  ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

CHAP.  II.  were  heralds  of  death  and  doom.  A  bird  lighting 
in  a  window,  a  dog  baying  at  certain  hours,  the 
cough  of  a  horse  in  the  direction  of  a  child,  the 
sight,  or  worse  still,  the  touch  of  a  dead  snake, 
heralded  domestic  woe.  A  wagon  dri\dng  past  the 
house  with  a  load  of  baskets  was  a  warning  of  at- 
mospheric disturbance.  A  vague  and  ignorant 
astronomy  governed  their  plantings  and  sowings, 
the  breeding  of  their  cattle,  and  all  farm-work. 
They  must  fell  trees  for  fence-rails  before  noon, 
and  in  the  waxing  of  the  moon.  Fences  built 
^?°44°'  when  there  was  no  moon  would  give  way; 
but  that  was  the  proper  season  for  planting 
potatoes  and  other  vegetables  whose  fruit  grows 
undergi'ound ;  those  which  bore  their  product  in 
the  air  must  be  planted  when  the  moon  shone. 
The  magical  power  of  the  moon  was  wide  in  its 
influence;  it  extended  to  the  most  minute  details 
of  life. 

Among  these  people,  and  in  all  essential  respects 
one  of  them,  Abraham  Lincoln  passed  his  childhood 
and  youth.  He  was  not  remarkably  precocious. 
His  mind  was  slow  in  acquisition,  and  his  powers 
of  reasoning  and  rhetoric  improved  constantly  to 
the  end  of  his  life,  at  a  rate  of  progress  marvelously 
regular  and  sustained.  But  there  was  that  about 
him,  even  at  the  age  of  nineteen  years,  which 
might  well  justify  his  admiring  friends  in  presaging 
for  him  an  unusual  career.  He  had  read  every 
book  he  could  find,  and  could  "  spell  down  "  the 
whole  county  at  their  orthographical  contests.  By 
dint  of  constant  practice  he  had  acquired  an  admi- 
rably clear  and  serviceable  handwriting.  He  occa- 
sionally astounded  his  companions  by  such  glimpses 


INDIANA  43 

of  occult  science  as  that  the  world  is  round  and  that  chap.  ii. 
the  sun  is  relatively  stationary.  He  wrote,  for  his 
own  amusement  and  edification,  essays  on  politics, 
of  which  gentlemen  of  standing  who  had  been 
favored  with  a  perusal  said  with  authority,  at  the 
cross-roads  grocery,  "  The  world  can't  beat  it." 
One  or  two  of  these  compositions  got  into  print 
and  vastly  increased  the  author's  local  fame.  He 
was  also  a  magnanimous  boy,  with  a  larger  and 
kindher  spirit  than  common.  His  generosity, 
courage,  and  capability  of  discerning  two  sides  to  a 
dispute,  were  remarkable  even  then,  and  won  him 
the  admiration  of  those  to  whom  such  qualities 
were  unknown.  But  perhaps,  after  all,  the  thing 
which  gained  and  fixed  his  mastery  over  his  fellows 
was  to  a  great  degree  his  gigantic  stature  and 
strength.  He  attained  his  full  growth,  six  feet 
and  four  inches,  two  years  before  he  came  of  age. 
He  rarely  met  with  a  man  he  could  not  easily 
handle.  His  strength  is  still  a  tradition  in  Spencer  ^p%2?' 
County.  One  aged  man  says  that  he  has  seen  him 
pick  up  and  carry  away  a  chicken-house  weigh- 
ing six  hundi-ed  pounds.  At  another  time,  seeing 
some  men  preparing  a  contrivance  for  lifting  some 
large  posts,  Abe  quickly  shouldered  the  posts  and 
took  them  where  they  were  needed.  One  of  his 
employers  says,  "  He  could  sink  an  axe  deeper  into 
wood  than  any  man  I  ever  saw."  With  strength 
like  this  and  a  brain  to  direct  it,  a  man  was  a 
born  leader  in  that  country  and  at  that  time. 

There  are,  of  course,  foolish  stories  extant  that 
Abraham  used  to  boast,  and  that  others  used  to 
predict,  that  he  would  be  President  some  day. 
The  same  thing  is  daily  said  of  thousands  of  boys 


44  ABEAHAM    LINCOLN 

Chap.  II.  who  Will  DGver  be  constables.  But  there  is  evi- 
dence that  he  felt  too  large  for  the  life  of  a  farm- 
hand on  Pigeon  Creek,  and  his  thoughts  naturally 
turned,  after  the  manner  of  restless  boys  in  the 
West,  to  the  river,  as  the  avenue  of  escape  from  the 
narrow  life  of  the  woods.  He  once  asked  an  old 
friend  to  give  him  a  recommendation  to  some 
steamboat  on  the  Ohio,  but  desisted  from  his  pur- 
pose on  being  reminded  that  his  father  had  the 
right  to  dispose  of  his  time  for  a  year  or  so  more. 
1828.  But  in  1828  an  opportunity  offered  for  a  little 
glimpse  of  the  world  outside,  and  the  boy  gladly 
embraced  it.  He  was  hired  by  Mr.  Gentry,  the 
proprietor  of  the  neighboring  village  of  Gentry- 
ville,  to  accompany  his  son  with  a  flat-boat  of 
produce  to  New  Orleans  and  intermediate  land- 
ings. The  voyage  was  made  successfully,  and 
Abraham  gained  great  credit  for  his  management 
and  sale  of  the  cargo.  The  only  important  incident 
of  the  trip  occurred  at  the  plantation  of  Madame 
Duchesne,  a  few  miles  below  Baton  Rouge.  The 
young  merchants  had  tied  up  for  the  night  and 
were  asleep  in  the  cabin,  when  they  were  aroused 
by  shuffling  footsteps,  which  proved  to  be  a  gang 
of  marauding  negroes,  coming  to  rob  the  boat. 
Abraham  instantly  attacked  them  with  a  club, 
knocked  several  overboard  and  put  the  rest  to 
flight;  flushed  with  battle,  he  and  Allen  Gentry 
carried  the  war  into  the  enemy's  country,  and  pur- 
sued the  retreating  Africans  some  distance  in  the 
darkness.  They  then  returned  to  the  boat,  bleed- 
ing but  victorious,  and  hastily  swung  into  the 
stream  and  floated  down  the  river  till  daylight. 
Lincoln's  exertion  in  later  years  for  the  welfare  of 


INDIANA  45 

the  African  race  showed  that  this  nocturnal  battle    chap.  ii. 
had  not  led  him  to  any  hasty  and  hostile  general- 
izations. 

The  next  autumn,  John  Hanks,  the  steadiest 
and  most  trustworthy  of  his  family,  went  to  Illi- 
nois. Though  an  illiterate  and  rather  dull  man,  he 
had  a  good  deal  of  solidity  of  character  and  conse- 
quently some  influence  and  consideration  in  the 
household.  He  settled  in  Macon  County,  and  was 
so  well  pleased  with  the  country,  and  especially 
with  its  admirable  distribution  into  prairie  and 
timber,  that  he  sent  repeated  messages  to  his 
friends  in  Indiana  to  come  out  and  join  him. 
Thomas  Lincoln  was  always  ready  to  move.  He 
had  probably  by  this  time  despaired  of  ever  own- 
ing any  unencumbered  real  estate  in  Indiana,  and 
the  younger  members  of  the  family  had  little  to 
bind  them  to  the  place  where  they  saw  nothing  in 
the  future  but  hard  work  and  poor  living.  Thomas 
Lincoln  handed  over  his  farm  to  Mr.  Gentry,  sold  isao. 
his  crop  of  corn  and  hogs,  packed  his  household 
goods  and  those  of  his  children  and  sons-in-law 
into  a  single  wagon,  drawn  by  two  yoke  of  oxen, 
the  combined  wealth  of  himself  and  Dennis  Hanks, 
and  started  for  the  new  State.  His  daughter 
Sarah  or  Nancy,  for  she  was  called  by  both  names, 
who  married  Aaron  Grigsby  a  few  years  before, 
had  died  in  childbirth.  The  emigrating  family 
consisted  of  the  Lincolns,  John  Johnston,  Mrs. 
Lincoln's  son,  and  her  daughters,  Mrs.  Hall  and 
Mrs.  Hanks,  with  their  husbands. 

Two  weeks  of  weary  tramping  over  forest  roads 
and  muddy  prairie,  and  the  dangerous  ford- 
ing of  streams   swoUen   by  the  February  thaws, 


46  ABEAHAM    LINCOLN 

Chap.  II.  brought  the  party  to  John  Hanks's  place  near  De- 
catur. He  met  them  with  a  frank  and  energetic 
"welcome.  He  had  already  selected  a  piece  of 
ground  for  them  a  few  miles  from  his  own,  and 
had  the  logs  ready  for  their  house.  They  num- 
bered men  enough  to  build  without  calling  in  theii' 
neighbors,  and  immediately  put  up  a  cabin  on  the 
north  fork  of  the  Sangamon  River.  The  family 
thus  housed  and  sheltered,  one  more  bit  of  filial 
work  remained  for  Abraham  before  assuming  his 
virile  independence.  With  the  assistance  of  John 
Hanks  he  plowed  fifteen  acres,  and  split,  from  the 
tall  walnut-trees  of  the  primeval  forest,  enough 
rails  to  surround  them  with  a  fence.  Little  did 
either  dream,  while  engaged  in  this  work,  that  the 
day  would  come  when  the  appearance  of  John 
Hanks  in  a  public  meeting,  with  two  of  these  rails 
on  his  shoulder,  would  electrify  a  State  convention, 
and  kindle  throughout  the  country  a  contagious 
and  passionate  enthusiasm,  whose  results  would 
reach  to  endless  generations. 


CHAPTER    III 


ILLINOIS    IN    1830 


THE   Lincolns  arrived  in  Illinois  just  in  time   chap.  in. 
to  entitle  themselves  to  be  called  pioneers. 
When,  in  after  years,  associations  of  "  Old  Settlers  " 
began  to  be  formed  in  Central  Illinois,  the  qualifi- 
cation for  membership  agreed  upon  by  common 
consent  was  a  residence  in  the  country  before  "  the 
winter  of  the  deep  snow."    This  was  in  1830-31,  a 
season  of  such  extraordinary  severity  that  it  has 
formed  for  half  a  century  a  recognized  date  in  the 
middle  counties  of  Illinois,  among  those  to  whom 
in  those  days  diaries  and  journals  were  unknown. 
The  snowfall  began  in  the  Christmas  holidays  and   ^^^  j  ^ 
continued  until  the  snow  was  three  feet  deep  on  ^^YdSi* 
level  ground.     Then  came  a  cold  rain,  freezing  as   settiJrs^of 
it  fell,  until  a  thick  crust  of  ice  gathered  over  the    clJSn^y/' 
snow.    The  weather  became  intensely   cold,   the 
mercury   sinking  to   twelve   degrees   below  zero, 
Fahrenheit,  and  remaining  there  for  two  weeks. 
The  storm  came  on  with  such  suddenness  that  all 
who  were  abroad  had  great  trouble  in  reaching     Bi'Jcwes, 
their  homes,  and  many  perished.     One  man  relates   ""cSy*" 
that  he  and  a  friend  or  two  were  out  in  a  hunting 
party  with   an  ox-team.      They  had  collected  a 
wagon-load  of  game  and  were  on  their  way  home 

47 


48  ABKAHAM    LINCOLN 

Chap.  III.  wheii  the  storm  struck  them.  After  they  had  gone 
four  miles  they  were  compelled  to  abandon  their 
wagon ;  the  snow  fell  in  heavy  masses  "  as  if 
thrown  from  a  scoop-shovel " ;  arriving  within  two 
miles  of  their  habitation,  they  were  forced  to  trust 
to  the  instinct  of  their  animals,  and  reached  home 
hanging  to  the  tails  of  their  steers.  Not  all  were 
so  fortunate.  Some  were  found  weeks  afterwards 
in  the  snow-drifts,  their  flesh  gnawed  by  famished 
wolves ;  and  the  fate  of  others  was  unknown  until 
the  late  spring  sunshine  revealed  their  resting- 
places.  To  those  who  escaped,  the  winter  was 
tedious  and  terrible.  It  is  hard  for  us  to  under- 
stand the  isolation  to  which  such  weather  con- 
demned the  pioneer.  For  weeks  they  remained  in 
their  cabins  hoping  for  some  mitigation  of  the 
frost.  When  at  last  they  were  driven  out  by  the 
fear  of  famine,  the  labor  of  establishing  communi- 
"^■"■Ea^i^v^'  cations  was  enormous.  They  finally  made  roads 
8angamo°i  by  "  wallowiug  through  the  snow,"  as  an  Illinois 
^  p'.'ea^'  historian  expresses  it,  and  going  patiently  over  the 
same  track  until  the  snow  was  trampled  hard  and 
rounded  like  a  turnpike.  These  roads  lasted  far 
into  the  spring,  when  the  snow  had  melted  from 
the  plains,  and  wound  for  miles  like  threads  of 
silver  over  the  rich  black  loam  of  the  prairies. 
After  that  winter  game  was  never  again  so  plenti- 
ful in  the  State.  Much  still  remained,  of  course, 
but  it  never  recovered  entirely  from  the  rigors  of 
that  season  and  the  stupid  enterprise  of  the  pio- 
neer hunters,  who,  when  they  came  out  of  their 
snow-beleaguered  cabins,  began  chasing  and  killing 
the  starved  deer  by  herds.  It  was  easy  work ;  the 
crust  of  the  snow  was  strong  enough  to  bear  the 


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ILLINOIS    IN    1830 


49 


"  Old  Times 

In  McLeau 

County," 

p.  111. 


weight  of  men  and  dogs,  but  the  slender  hoofs  of  chap.  m. 
the  deer  would  after  a  few  bounds  pierce  the 
treacherous  surface.  This  destructive  slaughter 
went  on  until  the  game  grew  too  lean  to  be  worth 
the  killing.  All  sorts  of  wild  animals  grew  scarce 
from  that  winter.  Old  settlers  say  that  the  slow 
cowardly  breed  of  prairie  wolves,  which  used  to  be 
caught  and  killed  as  readily  as  sheep,  disappeared 
about  that  time  and  none  but  the  fleeter  and 
stronger  survived. 

Only  once  since  then  has  nature  shown  such  ex- 
travagant severity  in  Illinois,  and  that  was  on  a 
day  in  the  winter  of  1836,  known  to  Illinoisans  as 
"  the  sudden  change."  At  noon  on  the  20th  of 
December,  after  a  warm  and  rainy  morning,  the 
ground  being  covered  with  mud  and  slush,  the 
temperature  fell  instantly  forty  degrees.  A  man 
riding  into  Springfield  for  a  marriage  license  says 
a  roaring  and  crackling  wind  came  upon  him  and 
the  rain-drops  dripping  from  his  bridle-reins  and 
beard  changed  in  a  second  into  jingling  icicles. 
He  rode  hastily  into  the  town  and  arrived  in  a  few 
minutes  at  his  destination ;  but  his  clothes  were 
frozen  like  sheet  iron,  and  man  and  saddle  had  to 
be  taken  into  the  house  together  to  be  thawed 
apart.  Geese  and  chickens  were  caught  by  the  feet 
and  wings  and  frozen  to  the  wet  ground.  A  drove 
of  a  thousand  hogs,  which  were  being  driven  to 
St.  Louis,  rushed  together  for  warmth,  and  became 
piled  in  a  great  heap.  Those  inside  smothered 
and  those  outside  froze,  and  the  ghastly  pyramid 
remained  there  on  the  prairie  for  weeks:  the 
drovers  barely  escaped  with  their  lives.  Men  killed 
their  horses,  disemboweled  them,  and  crept  into 

Vol.  I.— 4 


50  ABKAHAM    LINCOLN 

Chap.  III.   the  cavity  of  their  bodies  to  escape  the  murderous 
wind/ 

The  pioneer  period  of  Illinois  was  ending  as 
Thomas  Lincoln  and  his  tall  boy  drove  their  ox-team 
over  the  Indiana  line.  The  population  of  the  State 
had  grown  to  157,447.  It  still  clung  to  the  wooded 
borders  of  the  water-courses  ;  scattered  settlements 
were  to  be  found  all  along  the  Mississippi  and  its 
affluents,  from  where  Cairo  struggled  for  life  in  the 
swamps  of  the  Ohio  to  the  bustling  and  busy  min- 
ing camps  which  the  recent  discovery  of  lead  had 
brought  to  Galena.  A  line  of  villages  from  Alton 
to  Peoria  dotted  the  woodland  which  the  Illinois 
River  had  stretched,  like  a  green  baldric,  diagonally 
across  the  bosom  of  the  State.  Then  there  were 
long  reaches  of  wilderness  before  you  came  to  Fort 
Dearborn,  where  there  was  nothing  as  yet  to  give 
promise  of  that  miraculous  growth  which  was  soon 
to  make  Chicago  a  proverb  to  the  world.  There 
were  a  few  settlements  in  the  fertile  region  called 
the  Military  Tract ;  the  southern  part  of  the  State 
was  getting  itself  settled  here  and  there.  People 
were  coming  in  freely  to  the  Sangamon  country. 
But  a  grassy  solitude  stretched  from  Galena  to  Chi- 
cago, and  the  upper  half  of  the  State  was  generally 
a  wilderness.  The  earlier  emigrants,  principally 
of  the  poorer  class  of  Southern  farmers,  shunned 
the  prairies  with  something  of  a  superstitious 
dread.  They  preferred  to  pass  the  first  years  of 
their  occupation  in  the  wasteful  and  laborious  work 

1  Although  the  old  settlers  of  to  cite  only  those  incidents  of  the 

Sangamon  County  are  acquainted  sudden  change  which  are  given 

with  these   facts,  and    we    have  in  the  careful  and  conscientious 

often    heard    them     and    many  compilation  entitled  "  The  Early 

others  like  them  from  the  lips  of  Settlers  of  Sangamon  County," 

eye-witnesses,  we  have  preferred  by  John  Carroll  Power. 


ILLINOIS    IN    1830  51 

of  clearing  a  patch,  of  timber  for  corn,  rather  than  chap.  hi. 
enter  upon  those  rich  savannas  which  were  ready 
to  break  into  fertility  at  the  slightest  provocation 
of  culture.  Even  so  late  as  1835,  writes  J.  F. 
Speed,  "no  one  dreamed  the  prairies  would  ever 
be  occupied."  It  was  thought  they  would  be  used 
perpetually  as  grazing-fields  for  stock.  For  years 
the  long  processions  of  "  movers "  wound  over 
those  fertile  and  neglected  plains,  taking  no  hint 
of  the  wealth  suggested  by  the  rank  luxuriance  of 
vegetable  growth  around  them,  the  carpet  of 
brilliant  flowers  spread  over  the  verdant  knolls, 
the  strong,  succulent  grass  that  waved  in  the 
breeze,  full  of  warm  and  vital  odor,  as  high  as  the 
waist  of  a  man.  In  after  years,  when  the  emigra- 
tion from  the  Northern  and  Eastern  States  began 
to  pour  in,  the  prairies  were  rapidly  taken  up,  and 
the  relative  growth  and  importance  of  the  two 
sections  of  the  State  were  immediately  reversed. 
Governor  Ford,  writing  about  1847,  attributes  this 
result  to  the  fact  that  the  best  class  of  Southern 
people  were  slow  to  emigrate  to  a  State  where  they 
could  not  take  their  slaves ;  while  the  settlers  from 
the  North,  not  being  debarred  by  the  State  Consti- 
tution from  bringing  their  property  with  them, 
were  of  a  different  class.  "  The  northern  part  of 
the  State  was  settled  in  the  first  instance  by 
wealthy  farmers,  enterprising  merchants,  millers, 
and  manufacturers.  They  made  farms,  built  mills, 
churches,  school-houses,  towns,  and  cities,  and 
constructed  roads  and  bridges  as  if  by  magic ;  so 
that  although  the  settlements  in  the  southern  part 
of  the  State  are  from  twenty  to  fifty  years  in  ad- 
vance on  the  score  of  age,  yet  are  they  ten  years 


52  ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

Chap.  in.  behind  in  point  of  wealth  and  all  the  appliances 
Thomas     of  a  higher  civilization." 

"HietorVpf  At  the  time  which  we  are  specially  considering, 
p.  280.'  however,  the  few  inhabitants  of  the  south  and  the 
center  were  principally  from  what  came  afterwards 
to  be  called  the  border  slave  States.  They  were 
mostly  a  simple,  neighborly,  unambitious  people, 
contented  with  their  condition,  living  upon  plain 
fare,  and  knowing  not  much  of  anything  better. 
Luxury  was,  of  course,  unknown ;  even  wealth, 
if  it  existed,  could  procure  few  of  the  comforts 
of  refined  life.  There  was  little  or  no  money  in 
circulation.  Exchanges  were  effected  by  the  most 
primitive  forms  of  barter,  and  each  family  had  to 
rely  chiefly  upon  itself  for  the  means  of  living. 
The  neighbors  would  lend  a  hand  in  building  a 
cabin  for  a  new-comer ;  after  that  he  must  in  most 
cases  shift  for  himself.  Many  a  man  arriving  from 
an  old  community,  and  imperfectly  appreciating 
the  necessities  of  pioneer  life,  has  found  suddenly, 
on  the  approach  of  winter,  that  he  must  learn  to 
make  shoes  or  go  barefoot.  The  furniture  of  their 
houses  was  made  with  an  axe  from  the  trees  of  the 
forest.  Their  clothing  was  all  made  at  home.  The 
buckskin  days  were  over  to  a  great  extent,  though 
an  occasional  hunting-shirt  and  pair  of  moccasins 
were  still  seen.  But  flax  and  hemp  had  begun  to 
be  cultivated,  and  as  the  wolves  were  killed  off  the 
sheep-folds  increased,  and  garments  resembling 
those  of  civilization  were  spun  and  woven,  and  cut 
and  sewed,  by  the  women  of  the  family.  When  a 
man  had  a  suit  of  jeans  colored  with  butternut- 
dye,  and  his  wife  a  dress  of  linsey,  they  could 
appear  with  the  best  at  a  wedding  or  a  quilting 


ILLINOIS    IN    1830  53 

frolic.  The  superfluous  could  not  have  been  said  to  chap,  iil 
exist  in  a  community  where  men  made  their  own 
buttons,  where  women  dug  roots  in  the  woods  to 
make  their  tea  with,  where  many  children  never 
saw  a  stick  of  candy  until  after  they  were  grown. 
The  only  sweetmeats  known  were  those  a  skillful 
cook  could  compose  from  the  honey  plundered  from 
the  hollow  oaks  where  the  wild  bees  had  stored  it. 
Yet  there  was  withal  a  kind  of  rude  plenty ;  the 
woods  swarmed  with  game,  and  after  swine  began 
to  be  raised,  there  was  the  bacon  and  hoe-cake 
which  any  south-western  farmer  will  say  is  good 
enough  for  a  king.  The  greatest  privation  was  the 
lack  of  steel  implements.  His  axe  was  as  precious 
to  the  pioneer  as  his  sword  to  the  knight  errant. 
Governor  John  Reynolds  speaks  of  the  panic  felt 
in  his  father's  family  when  the  axe  was  dropped 
into  a  stream.  A  battered  piece  of  tin  was  care- 
fully saved  and  smoothed,  and  made  into  a  grater 
for  green  corn. 

They  had  their  own  amusements,  of  course ;  no 
form  of  society  is  without  them,  from  the  anthro- 
poid apes  to  the  Jockey  Club.  As  to  the  grosser 
and  ruder  shapes  taken  by  the  diversions  of  the 
pioneers,  we  will  let  Mr.  Herndon  speak — their 
contemporary  annalist  and  ardent  panegyrist : 
"  These  men  could  shave  a  horse's  mane  and  tail, 
paint,  disfigure,  and  offer  it  for  sale  to  the  owner. 
They  could  hoop  up  in  a  hogshead  a  drunken  man, 
they  themselves  being  drunk,  put  in  and  nail  fast 
the  head,  and  roll  the  man  down  hill  a  hundred 
feet  or  more.  They  could  run  down  a  lean  and 
hungry  wild  pig,  catch  it,  heat  a  ten-plate  stove 
furnace  hot,  and  putting  in  the  pig,  could  cook  it, 


54  ABKAHAM    LINCOLN 

CHAP.  III.   they  dancing  the  while  a  merry  jig."    Wild  oats 
of  this  kind  seem  hardly  compatible  with  a  harvest 
of  civilization,  but  it  is   contended  that  such  of 
these  roysterers  as  survived  their  stormy  begin- 
nings became  decent  and  serious  citizens.    Indeed, 
Mr.  Herndon  insists  that  even  in  their  hot  youth 
they  showed  the  promise  of  goodness  and  piety. 
William e.    "They  attended  church,  heard  the  sermon,  wept 
?p™c^i?at^   and  prayed,  shouted,  got  up  and  fought  an  hour, 
tier?  Meet-  and  then  went  back  to  prayer,  just  as  the  spirit 
^''So^iJ^^y.     moved  them."    The   camp-meeting  may  be   said, 
with  no  irreverent  intention,  to  have   been   their 
principal  means  of  intellectual  excitement.      The 
circuit  preachers  were  for  a  long  time  the  only  cir- 
culating medium  of  thought  and  emotion  that  kept 
the  isolated  settlements  from  utter  spii'itual  stag- 
nation.   They  were    men  of  great  physical   and 
moral  endurance,  absolutely  devoted  to  their  work, 
which  they  pursued  in  the  face  of  every  hardship 
and  discouragement.  Their  circuits  were  frequently 
so  great  in  extent  that  they  were  forced  to  be  con- 
stantly on  the  route;  what  reading  they  did  was 
done  in  the  saddle.     They  received  perhaps  fifty 
dollars  from  the  missionary  fund  and  half  as  much 
iSSn   more  from  their  congregations,  paid  for  the  most 
*^p"i9l'     part  in  necessaries  of  life.   Their  oratory  was  suited 
to  their  longitude,  and  was  principally  addressed 
to  the  emotions  of  their  hearers.    It  was  often  very 
effective,  producing  shouts  and  groans  and  genu- 
flections among  the  audience  at  large,  and  terrible 
convulsions  among  the  more  nervous  and  excit- 
able.    We  hear  sometimes  of  a  whole  congregation 
prostrated  as  by  a  hurricane,  flinging  their  limbs 
about  in  furious  contortions,  with  wild   outcries. 


ILLINOIS    IN    1830  55 

To  this  day  some  of  the  survivors  of  that  period  chap.  hi. 
insist  that  it  was  the  spirit  of  the  Almighty,  and 
nothing  less,  that  thus  manifested  itself.  The 
minister,  however,  did  not  always  share  in  the  de- 
lirium of  his  hearers.  Governor  Reynolds  tells  us 
of  a  preacher  in  Sangamon  County,  who,  before 
his  sermon,  had  set  a  wolf-trap  in  view  from  his 
pulpit.  In  the  midst  of  his  exhortations  his  keen 
eyes  saw  the  distant  trap  collapse,  and  he  continued 
in  the  same  intonation  with  which  he  had  been 
preaching,  "  Mind  the  text,  brethren,  till  I  go  kill 
that  wolf  !  "  With  all  the  faiUngs  and  eccentricities 
of  this  singular  class  of  men,  they  did  a  great  deal 
of  good,  and  are  entitled  to  especial  credit  among 
those  who  conquered  the  wilderness.  The  emotions 
they  excited  did  not  all  die  away  in  the  shouts  and 
contortions  of  the  meeting.  Not  a  few  of  the 
cabins  in  the  clearings  were  the  abode  of  a  fervent 
religion  and  an  austere  morality.  Many  a  traveler, 
approaching  a  rude  hut  in  the  woods  in  the  gather- 
ing twilight,  distrusting  the  gaunt  and  silent 
family  who  gave  him  an  unsmiling  welcome,  the 
bare  interior,  the  rifles  and  knives  conspicuously 
displayed,  has  felt  his  fears  vanish  when  he  sat 
down  to  supper,  and  the  master  of  the  house,  in  a 
few  fervent  words,  invoked  the  blessing  of  heaven 
on  the  meal. 

There  was  very  little  social  intercourse ;  a  visit 
was  a  serious  matter,  involving  the  expenditure  of 
days  of  travel.  It  was  the  custom  among  families, 
when  the  longing  for  the  sight  of  kindred  faces 
was  too  strong  to  withstand,  to  move  in  a  body  to 
the  distant  settlement  where  their  relatives  lived 
and  remain  with  them  for  months  at  a  time.    The 


56  ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

Chap.  III.  claims  of  consanguinity  were  more  regarded  than 
now.  Almost  the  only  festivities  were  those  that 
accompanied  weddings,  and  these  were,  of  course, 
of  a  primitive  kind.  The  perils  and  adventures 
through  which  the  young  pioneers  went  to  obtain 
their  brides  furnish  forth  thousands  of  tales  by 
Western  firesides.  Instead  of  taking  the  rosy 
daughter  of  a  neighbor,  the  enterprising  bachelor 
would  often  go  back  to  Kentucky,  and  pass 
through  as  many  adventures  in  bringing  his  wife 
home  as  a  returning  crusader  would  meet  between 
Beirut  and  Vienna.  If  she  was  a  young  woman 
who  respected  herself,  the  household  gear  she 
would  insist  on  bringing  would  entail  an  Iliad  of 
embarrassments.  An  old  farmer  of  Sangamon 
County  still  talks  of  a  feather-bed  weighing  fifty- 
four  pounds  with  which  his  wife  made  him  swim 
six  rivers  under  penalty  of  desertion. 

It  was  not  always  easy  to  find  a  competent  au- 
thority to  perform  the  ceremony.  A  justice  in 
McLean  County  lived  by  the  bank  of  a  river,  and 
his  services  were  sometimes  requu'ed  by  impatient 
lovers  on  the  other  bank  when  the  waters  were  too 
torrential  to  cross.  In  such  cases,  being  a  consci- 
entious man,  he  always  insisted  that  they  should 
ride  into  the  stream  far  enough  for  him  to  discern 
their  features,  holding  torches  to  their  faces  by 
night  and  by  storm.  The  wooing  of  those  days  was 
prompt  and  practical.  There  was  no  time  for  the 
gradual  approaches  of  an  idler  and  more  conven- 
tional age.  It  is  related  of  one  Stout,  one  of  the 
legendary  Nimrods  of  Illinois,  who  was  well  and 
frequently  married,  that  he  had  one  unfailing  for- 
mula of  courtship.    He  always  promised  the  ladies 


ILLINOIS    IN  1830  57 

whose  hearts  he  was  besieging  that  "  they  should    chap.  hi. 
live  in  the  timber  where  they  could  pick  up  their 
own  firewood." 

Theft  was  almost  unknown ;  property,  being  so 
hard  to  get,  was  jealously  guarded,  as  we  have 
already  noticed  in  speaking  of  the  settlement  of 
Kentucky.  The  pioneers  of  Illinois  brought  with 
them  the  same  rigid  notions  of  honesty  which  their 
environment  maintained.  A  man  in  Macoupin 
County  left  his  wagon,  loaded  with  corn,  stuck  in 
the  prairie  mud  for  two  weeks  near  a  frequented 
road.  When  he  returned  he  found  some  of  his  corn 
gone,  but  there  was  money  enough  tied  in  the 
sacks  to  pay  for  what  was  taken.  Men  carrying 
bags  of  silver  from  the  towns  of  Illinois  to  St. 
Louis  rather  made  a  display  of  it,  as  it  enhanced 
their  own  importance,  and  there  was  no  fear  of 
robbery.  There  were  of  course  no  locks  on  the 
cabin  doors,  and  the  early  merchants  sometimes 
left  their  stores  unprotected  for  days  together  when 
they  went  to  the  nearest  city  to  replenish  their 
stock.  Of  course  there  were  rare  exceptions  to 
this  rule,  but  a  single  theft  alarmed  and  excited  a 
whole  neighborhood.  When  a  crime  was  traced 
home,  the  family  of  the  criminal  were  generally 
obliged  to  remove. 

There  were  still,  even  so  late  as  the  time  to  which 
we  are  referring,  two  alien  elements  in  the  popula- 
tion of  the  State  —  the  French  and  the  Indians. 
The  French  settlements  about  Kaskaskia  retained 
much  of  their  national  character,  and  the  pioneers 
from  the  South  who  visited  them  or  settled  among 
them  never  ceased  to  wonder  at  their  gayety,  their 
peaceable  industry  and  enterprise,  and  their  domes- 


58  ABEAHAM    LINCOLN 

Chap.  III.  tic  affectioii,  whicli  they  did  not  care  to  dissemble 
and  conceal  like  their  shy  and  reticent  neighbors. 
It  was  a  daily  spectacle,  which  never  lost  its 
strangeness  for  the  Tennesseeans  and  Kentuckians, 
to  see  the  Frenchman  returning  from  his  work 
greeted  by  his  wife  and  children  with  embraces  of 
welcome  "at  the  gate  of  his  door-yard,  and  in 
view  of  all  the  villagers."  The  natural  and  kindly 
fraternization  of  the  Frenchmen  with  the  Indians 
was  also  a  cause  of  wonder  to  the  Americans.  The 
friendly  intercourse  between  them,  and  their 
occasional  intermarriages,  seemed  little  short  of 
monstrous  to  the  ferocious  exclusiveness  of  the 
Anglo-Saxon.^  The  Indians  in  the  central  part  of 
Illinois  cut  very  little  figure  in  the  reminiscences 
of  the  pioneers  ;  they  occupied  much  the  same 
relation  to  them  as  the  tramp  to  the  housewife  of 
to-day.  The  Winnebago  war  in  1827  and  the  Black 
Hawk  war  in  1831  disturbed  only  the  northern 
portion  of  the  State.  A  few  scattered  and  vagrant 
lodges  of  Pottawatomies  and  Kickapoos  were  all  the 
pioneers  of  Sangamon  and  the  neighboring  counties 
ever  met.  They  were  spared  the  heroic  struggle  of 
the  advance-guard  of  civilization  in  other  States. 
A  woman  was  sometimes  alarmed  by  a  visit  from  a 
drunken  savage ;  poultry  and  pigs  occasionally 
disappeared  when  they  were  in  the  neighborhood ; 
but  life  was  not  darkened  by  the  constant  menace 
of  massacre.  A  few  years  earlier,  indeed,  the  re- 
lations of  the  two  races  had  been  more  strained,  as 
may  be  inferred  from  an  act  passed  by  the  territo- 
rial Legislature  in  1814,  offering  a  reward  of  fifty 

1  Michelet  notices  this  exelu-  style.  "  Crime  eontre  la  nature ! 
siveness  of  the  English,  and  in-  Crime  eontre  I'humanit^ !  H  sera 
veighs  against  it  in  his  most  lyric    expi6  par  la  st6rilit6  de  I'esprit." 


ILLINOIS    IN    1830 


59 


dollars  to  any  citizen  or  ranger  who  should  kill 
or  take  any  depredating  Indian.  As  only  two 
dollars  was  paid  for  killing  a  wolf,  it  is  easy  to  see 
how  the  pioneers  regarded  the  forest  folk  in  point 
of  relative  noxiousness.  But  ten  years  later  a 
handful  only  of  the  Kickapoos  remained  in  San- 
gamon County,  the  specter  of  the  vanished  people. 
A  chief  named  Machina  came  one  day  to  a  family 
who  were  clearing  a  piece  of  timber,  and  issued  an 
order  of  eviction  in  these  words :  "  Too  much  come 
white  man.  T'other  side  Sangamon."  He  threw  a 
handful  of  dried  leaves  in  the  air  to  show  how  he 
would  scatter  the  pale  faces,  but  he  never  fulfilled 
his  threats  further  than  to  come  in  occasionally 
and  ask  for  a  drink  of  whisky.  That  such  trivial 
details  are  still  related,  only  shows  how  barren  of 
incident  was  the  life  of  these  obscure  founders  of  a 
great  empire.  Any  subject  of  conversation,  any 
cause  of  sensation,  was  a  godsend.  When  Vannoy 
murdered  his  wife  in  Springfield,  whole  families 
put  on  their  best  clothes  and  drove  fifty  miles 
through  bottomless  mud  and  swollen  rivers  to  see 
him  hanged. 

It  is  curious  to  see  how  naturally  in  such  a  state 
of  things  the  fabric  of  political  society  developed 
itself  from  its  germ.  The  county  of  Sangamon 
was  called  by  an  act  of  the  Legislature  in  1821  out 
of  a  verdant  solitude  of  more  than  a  million  acres, 
inhabited  by  a  few  families.  An  election  for 
county  commissioners  was  ordered  ;  three  men  were 
chosen;  they  came  together  at  the  cabin  of  John 
Kelly,  at  Spring  Creek.  He  was  a  roving  bachelor 
from  North  Carolina,  devoted  to  the  chase,  who 
had  built  this  hut  three  years  before  on  the  margin 


Chap.  III. 

N.  W, 
Edwards, 
*'  Life  and 
Times  of 

Niuian 
Edwards," 

p.  163. 


60  ABKAHAM    LINCOLN 

Chap.  III.  of  a  green-bordered  rivulet,  where  the  deer 
passed  by  in  hundreds,  going  in  the  morning  from 
the  shady  banks  of  the  Sangamon  to  feed  on  the 
rich  green  grass  of  the  prairie,  and  retm-ning  in 
the  twilight.  He  was  so  delighted  with  this 
Power,     hunters'  paradise  that  he  sent  for  his  brothers  to 

"  Early  Set-     .    .  -^ 

Sangamon  ^^^^  ^^^*  They  Came  and  brought  their  friends, 
^'J!°3'!^' '  ^^d  s^  i^  happened  that  in  this  immense  county, 
several  thousand  square  miles  in  extent,  the  settle- 
ment of  John  Kelly  at  Spring  Creek  was  the  only 
place  where  there  was  shelter  for  the  commis- 
sioners ;  thus  it  became  the  temporary  county- 
seat,  duly  described  in  the  official  report  of  the 
commissioners  as  "a  certain  point  in  the  prairie 
near  John  Kelly's  field,  on  the  waters  of  Spring 
Creek,  at  a  stake  marked  Z  and  D  (the  initials  of 
the  commissioners),  to  be  the  temporary  seat  of 
justice  for  said  county ;  and  we  do  further  agree 
that  the  said  county-seat  be  called  and  known  by 
the  name  of  Springfield."  In  this  manner  the 
future  capital  received  that  hackneyed  title,  when 
the  distinctive  and  musical  name  of  Sangamon  was 
ready  to  their  hands.  The  same  day  they  agreed 
with  John  Kelly  to  build  them  a  court-house,  for 
which  they  paid  him  forty-two  dollars  and  fifty 
cents.  In  twenty-four  days  the  house  was  built  — 
one  room  of  rough  logs,  the  jury  retiring  to  any 
sequestered  glade  they  fancied  for  their  deliberation. 
They  next  ordered  the  building  of  a  jail,  which 
cost  just  twice  as  much  money  as  the  court-house. 
Constables  and  overseers  of  the  poor  were  ap- 
pointed, and  all  the  machinery  of  government 
prepared  for  the  population  which  was  hourly 
expected.   It  was  taken  for  granted  that  malefactors 


ILLINOIS    IN    1830  61 

would  come  and  the  constables  have  employment ;  chap.  hi. 
and  the  poor  they  would  have  always  with  them, 
when  once  they  began  to  arrive.  This  was  only  a 
temporary  arrangement,  but  when,  a  year  or  two 
later,  the  time  came  to  fix  upon  a  permanent  seat 
of  justice  for  the  county,  the  resources  of  the 
Spring  Creek  men  were  equal  to  the  emergency. 
When  the  commissioners  came  to  decide  on  the  rel- 
ative merits  of  Springfield  and  another  site  a  few 
miles  away,  they  led  them  through  brake,  through 
brier,  by  mud  knee-deep  and  by  water-courses  so 
exasperating  that  the  wearied  and  baffled  officials 
declared  they  would  seek  no  further,  and  Spring- 
field became  the  county-seat  for  all  time;  and 
greater  destinies  were  in  store  for  it  through 
means  not  wholly  dissimilar.  Nature  had  made  it 
merely  a  pleasant  hunting-ground;  the  craft  and 
the  industry  of  its  first  settlers  made  it  a  capital. 

The  courts  which  were  held  in  these  log  huts  were 
as  rude  as  might  be  expected ;  yet  there  is  evidence 
that  although  there  was  no  superfluity  of  law  or  of 
learning,  justice  was  substantially  administered. 
The  lawyers  came  mostly  from  Kentucky,  though 
an  occasional  New  Englander  confronted  and  lived 
down  the  general  prejudice  against  his  region  and 
obtained  preferment.  The  profits  of  the  profession 
were  inconceivably  small.  One  early  State's  At- 
torney describes  his  first  circuit  as  a  tour  of  shifts  "History of 
and  privations  not  unlike  the  wanderings  of  a  ^county/^ 
mendicant  friar.  In  his  first  county  he  received  a  ^" 
fee  of  five  dollars  for  prosecuting  the  parties  to  a 
sanguinary  affray.  In  the  next  he  was  equally 
successful,  but  barely  escaped  drowning  in  Spoon 
River.    In  the  third  there  were  but  two  families  at 


62  ABEAHAM    LINCOLN 

Chap.  III.  the  county-seat,  and  no  cases  on  the  docket. 
Thence  he  journeyed  across  a  trackless  prairie  sixty 
miles,  and  at  Quincy  had  one  case  and  gained  five 
dollars.  In  Pike  County  our  much-enduring  jurist 
took  no  cash,  but  found  a  generous  sheriff  who 
entertained  him  without  charge.  "  He  was  one  of 
nature's  noblemen,  from  Massachusetts,"  writes  the 
grateful  prosecutor.  The  lawyers  in  what  was  called 
good  practice  earned  less  than  a  street-sweeper 
to-day.  It  is  related  that  the  famous  Stephen  A. 
Douglas  once  traveled  from  Springfield  to  Bloom- 
ington  and  made  an  extravagant  speech,  and  hav- 
" Old  Times  ing  gained  his  case  received  a  fee  of  five  dollars. 

County/"  In  such  a  state  of  things  it  was  not  to  be  wondered 
at  that  the  technicalities  of  law  were  held  in  some- 
what less  veneration  than  what  the  pioneer 
regarded  as  the  essential  claims  of  justice.  The 
infirmities  of  the  jury  system  gave  them  less  annoy- 
ance than  they  give  us.  Governor  Ford  mentions 
a  case  where  a  gang  of  horse-thieves  succeeded  in 
placing  one  of  their  confederates  upon  a  jury  which 
was  to  try  them  ;  but  he  was  soon  brought  to 
reason  by  his  eleven  colleagues  making  prepara- 
tions to  hang  him  to  the  rafters  of  the  jury  room. 
The  judges  were  less  hampered  by  the  limitations  of 
their  legal  lore  than  by  their  fears  of  a  loss  of 
popularity  as  a  result  of  too  definite  charges  in 
civil  suits,  or  too  great  severity  in  criminal  cases. 
They  grew  very  dexterous  in  avoiding  any  com- 
mitment as  to  the  legal  or  moral  bearings  of  the 
questions  brought  before  them.  They  generally 
refused  to  sum  up,  or  to  comment  upon  evidence ; 
when  asked  by  the  counsel  to  give  instructions 
they  would  say,  "  Why,  gentlemen,  the  jury  under- 


ILLINOIS    IN    1830 


63 


Ford, 
History  of 
Illinois," 

p.  83. 


stand  this  case  as  well  as  you  or  I.  They  will  do  chap.  hi. 
justice  between  the  parties."  One  famous  judge, 
who  was  afterwards  governor,  when  sentencing  a 
murderer,  impressed  it  upon  his  mind,  and  wished 
him  to  inform  his  friends,  that  it  was  the  jury  and 
not  the  judge  who  had  found  him  guilty,  and  then 
asked  him  on  what  day  he  would  like  to  be  hanged. 
It  is  needless  to  say  that  the  bench  and  bar  were 
not  all  of  this  class.  There  were  even  at  that  early 
day  lawyers,  and  not  a  few,  who  had  already  won 
reputation  in  the  older  States,  and  whose  names 
are  still  honored  in  the  profession.  Cook,  McLean, 
Edwards,  Kane,  Thomas,  Reynolds,  and  others,  the 
earliest  lawyers  of  the  State,  have  hardly  been 
since  surpassed  for  learning  and  ability. 

In  a  community  where  the  principal  men  were 
lawyers,  where  there  was  as  yet  little  commerce, 
and  industrial  enterprise  was  unknown,  it  was 
natural  that  one  of  the  chief  interests  of  life  should 
be  the  pursuit  of  politics.  The  young  State 
swarmed  with  politicians;  they  could  be  found 
chewing  and  whittling  at  every  cross-roads  inn; 
they  were  busy  at  every  horse-race,  arranging  their 
plans  and  extending  their  acquaintance;  around 
the  burgoo-pot  of  the  hunting  party  they  discussed 
measures  and  candidates;  they  even  invaded  the 
camp-meeting  and  did  not  disdain  the  pulpit  as  a 
tribune.  Of  course  there  was  no  such  thing  as 
organization  in  the  pioneer  days.  Men  were  voted 
for  to  a  gi-eat  extent  independently  of  partisan 
questions  affecting  the  nation  at  large,  and  in  this 
way  the  higher  offices  of  the  State  were  filled  for 
many  years  by  men  whose  personal  character  com- 
pelled the  respect  and  esteem  of  the  citizens.    The 


64  ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

Chap.  III.  year  1826  is  generally  taken  as  the  date  which 
witnessed  the  change  from  personal  to  partisan 
politics,  though  several  years  more  elapsed  before 
the  rule  of  conventions  came  in,  which  put  an  end 
to  individual  candidacy.  In  that  year,  Daniel 
Pope  Cook,  who  had  long  represented  the  State  in 
Congress  with  singular  ability  and  purity,  was  de- 
feated by  Governor  Joseph  Duncan,  the  candidate 
of  the  Jackson  men,  on  account  of  the  vote  given 
by  Cook  which  elected  John  Quincy  Adams  to  the 
Presidency.  The  bitter  intolerance  of  the  Jackson 
party  naturally  caused  their  opponents  to  organize 
against  them,  and  there  were  two  parties  in  the 
State  from  that  time  forward.  The  change  in  polit- 
ical methods  was  inevitable,  and  it  is  idle  to 
deplore  it ;  but  the  former  system  gave  the  better 
men  in  the  new  State  a  power  and  prominence 
which  they  have  never  since  enjoyed.  Such  men 
as  Governor  Ninian  Edwards,  who  came  with  the 
prestige  of  a  distinguished  family  connection,  a 
large  fortune,  a  good  education,  and  a  distinction 
of  manners  and  of  dress  —  ruffles,  gold  buttons, 
and  fair-topped  boots  —  which  would  hardly  have 
been  pardoned  a  few  years  later;  and  Governor 
Edward  Coles,  who  had  been  private  secretary 
to  Madison,  and  was  familiar  with  the  courts  of 
Europe,  a  man  as  notable  for  his  gentleness  of 
manners  as  for  his  nobility  of  nature,  could  never 
have  come  so  readily  and  easily  to  the  head  of 
the  government  after  the  machine  of  the  caucus 
had  been  perfected.  Real  ability  then  imposed 
itself  with  more  authority  upon  the  ignorant  and 
unpretending  politicians  from  the  back  timber ;  so 
that  it  is  remarked  by  those  who  study  the  early 


ILLINOIS    IN    1830 


65 


Ford, 
History  of 
IlUnois," 

p.  31. 


statutes  of  Illinois  that  they  are  far  better  drawn  chap,  m, 
up,  and  better  edited,  than  those  of  a  later  period, 
when  illiterate  tricksters,  conscious  of  the  party 
strength  behind  them,  insisted  on  shaping  legisla- 
tion according  to  their  own  fancy.  The  men  of 
cultivation  wielded  an  influence  in  the  Legislature 
entirely  out  of  proportion  to  their  numbers,  as  the 
ruder  sort  of  pioneers  were  naturally  in  a  large 
majority.  The  type  of  a  not  uncommon  class  in 
Illinois  tradition  was  a  member  from  the  South 
who  could  neither  read  nor  write,  and  whose  appar- 
ently ironical  patronymic  was  Grammar.  When 
first  elected  he  had  never  worn  anything  except 
leather;  but  regarding  his  tattered  buckskin  as 
unfit  for  the  garb  of  a  lawgiver,  he  and  his  sons 
gathered  hazel-nuts  enough  to  barter  at  the  nearest 
store  for  a  few  yards  of  blue  strouding  such  as  the 
Indians  used  for  breech-clouts.  When  he  came 
home  with  his  purchase  and  had  called  together 
the  women  of  the  settlement  to  make  his  clothes, 
it  was  found  that  there  was  only  material  enough 
for  a  very  short  coat  and  a  long  pair  of  leggins,  and 
thus  attired  he  went  to  Kaskaskia,  the  territorial 
capital.  Uncouth  as  was  his  appearance,  he  had  in 
him  the  raw  material  of  a  politician.  He  invented 
a  system  —  which  was  afterwards  adopted  by  many 
whose  breeches  were  more  fashionably  cut  —  of 
voting  against  every  measure  which  was  proposed. 
If  it  failed,  the  responsibility  was  broadly  shared ; 
if  it  passed  and  was  popular,  no  one  would  care 
who  voted  against  it ;  if  it  passed  and  did  not  meet 
the  favor  of  the  people,  John  Grammar  could  vaunt 
his  foresight.  Between  the  men  like  Coles  and  the 
men  like  Grammar  there  was  a  wide  interval,  and 
Vol.  L— 5 


66  ABKAHAM    LINCOLN 

Chap.  Ill,  the  average  was  about  what  the  people  of  the  State 
deserved  and  could  appreciate.  A  legislator  was 
as  likely  to  suffer  for  doing  right  as  for  doing 
wrong.  Governor  Ford,  in  his  admirable  sketch  of 
the  early  history  of  the  State,  mentions  two  acts 
of  the  Legislature,  both  of  them  proper  and  bene- 
ficial, as  unequaled  in  their  destructive  influence 
upon  the  great  folks  of  the  State.  One  was  a  bill 
for  a  loan  to  meet  the  honest  obligations  of  the 
commonwealth,  commonly  called  "  the  Wiggins 
loan  " ;  and  the  other  was  a  law  to  prevent  bulls  of 
inferior  size  and  breed  from  running  at  large.  This 
latter  set  loose  all  the  winds  of  popular  fury :  it  was 
cruel,  it  was  aristocratic ;  it  was  in  the  interest  of 
rich  men  and  pampered  foreign  bulls  ;  and  it  ended 
the  career  of  many  an  aspiring  politician  in  a  blast 
of  democratic  indignation  and  scorn.  The  poli- 
tician who  relied  upon  immediate  and  constant 
contact  with  the  people  certainly  earned  all  the 
emoluments  of  office  he  received.  His  successes 
were  hardly  purchased  by  laborious  affability.  "A 
friend  of  mine,"  says  Ford,  "  once  informed  me 
that  he  intended  to  be  a  candidate  for  the  Legisla- 
ture, but  would  not  declare  himself  until  just  before 
the  election,  and  assigned  as  a  reason  that  it  was 
so  very  hard  to  be  clever  for  a  long  time  at  once." 
Before  the  caucus  had  eliminated  the  individual 
initiative,  there  was  much  more  of  personal  feeling 
in  elections.  A  vote  against  a  man  had  something 
of  offense  in  it,  and  sometimes  stirred  up  a  defeated 
candidate  to  heroic  vengeance.  In  1827  the  Legis- 
lature elected  a  State  treasurer  after  an  exciting 
contest,  and  before  the  members  had  left  the  house 
the   unsuccessful  aspirant  came  in  and  soundly 


ILLINOIS    IN    1830  67 

thrashed,  one  after  the  other,  four  of  the  represent-  chap.  hi. 
atives  who  had  voted  against  him.  Such  energy  Ford,  p.  si. 
was  sure  to  meet  its  reward,  and  he  was  soon  after 
made  clerk  of  the  Circuit  Court.  It  is  related  by 
old  citizens  of  Menard  County,  as  a  circumstance 
greatly  to  the  credit  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  that 
when  he  was  a  candidate  for  the  Legislature  a  man 
who  wanted  his  vote  for  another  place  walked  to 
the  polls  with  him  and  ostentatiously  voted  for 
him,  hoping  to  receive  his  vote  in  return.  Lincoln 
voted  against  him,  and  the  act  was  much  admired 
by  those  who  saw  it. 

One  noticeable  fact  is  observed  in  relation  to  the 
politicians  of  the  day — their  careers  were  generally 
brief.  Superannuation  came  early.  In  the  latter 
part  of  the  last  century  and  the  first  half  of  this, 
men  were  called  old  whom  we  should  regard  as  in 
the  prime  of  life.  When  the  friends  of  Washington 
were  first  pressing  the  Presidency  upon  him  in 
1788,  he  urged  his  "  advanced  age"  as  an  imperative 
reason  for  declining  it :  he  was  fifty-six  years  old. 
When  Ninian  Edwards  was  a  candidate  for  Gov- 
ernor of  Illinois  in  1826,  he  was  only  fifty-one,  and 
yet  he  considered  it  necessary  in  his  published  ad- 
dresses to  refer  to  the  charge  that  he  was  too  old 
for  the  place,  and,  while  admitting  the  fact  that  he 
was  no  longer  young,  to  urge  in  extenuation  that 
there  are  some  old  things, — like  old  whisky,  old 
bacon,  and  old  friends, —  which  are  not  without 
their  merits.  Even  so  late  as  1848,  we  find  a 
remarkable  letter  from  Mr.  Lincoln,  who  was  then 
in  Congress,  bearing  upon  the  same  point.  His 
partner,  William  H.  Herudon,  had  written  him  a 
letter,  complaining  that  the  old  men  in  Sangamon 


68  ABKAHAM    LINCOLN 

Chap.  III.  County  Were  unwilling  to  let  the  young  ones  have 
any  opportunity  to  distinguish  themselves.  To 
this  Lincoln  answered  in  his  usual  tone  of  grave 
kindness :  "  The  subject  of  your  letter  is  exceed- 
ingly painful  to  me  ;  and  I  cannot  but  think  there 
is  some  mistake  in  your  impression  of  the  motives 
of  the  old  men.  I  suppose  I  am  now  one  of  the 
old  men,  and  I  declare  on  my  veracity,  which  I 
think  is  good  with  you,  that  nothing  could  afford 
me  more  satisfaction  than  to  learn  that  you  and 
others  of  my  young  friends  at  home  were  doing 
battle  in  the  contest  and  endearing  themselves  to 
the  people  and  taking  a  stand  far  above  any  I  have 
ever  been  able  to  reach  in  their  admiration.  I 
cannot  conceive  that  other  old  men  feel  differently. 
Of  course,  I  cannot  demonstrate  what  I  say ;  but  I 
was  young  once,  and  I  am  sure  I  was  never  un- 
generously thrust  back." 

The  man  who  thus  counseled  petulant  youth  with 
the  experienced  calmness  of  age  was  thirty-nine 
years  old.  A  state  of  society  where  one  could  at 
that  age  call  himself  or  be  called  by  others  an  old 
man,  is  proved  by  that  fact  alone  to  be  one  of 
wearing  hardships  and  early  decay  of  the  vital 
powers.  The  survivors  of  the  pioneers  stoutly  in- 
sist upon  the  contrary  view.  "  It  was  a  glorious 
life,"  says  one  old  patriarch ;  "  men  would  fight  for 
the  love  of  it,  and  then  shake  hands  and  be  friends ; 
there  is  nothing  like  it  now."  Another  says,  "I 
never  enjoy  my  breakfast  now  as  I  used  to,  when  I 
got  up  and  ran  down  a  deer  before  I  could  have 
anything  to  eat."  But  they  see  the  past  through 
a  rosy  mist  of  memory,  transfigured  by  the  eternal 
magic  of  youth.     The  sober  fact  is  that  the  life 


ILLINOIS    IN     1830  69 

was  a  hard  one,  with  few  rational  pleasures,  few  chap.iii. 
wholesome  appliances.  The  strong  ones  lived,  and 
some  even  attained  great  length  of  years ;  but  to 
the  many  age  came  early  and  was  full  of  infirmity 
and  pain.  If  we  could  go  back  to  what  our  fore- 
fathers endm'ed  in  clearing  the  Western  wilderness, 
we  could  then  better  appreciate  our  obligations  to 
them.  It  is  detracting  from  the  honor  which  is 
their  due  to  say  that  their  lives  had  much  of  happi- 
ness or  comfort,  or  were  in  any  respect  preferable 
to  our  own. 


CHAPTER   IV 


NEW     SALEM 


CHAP.rv.  TPV  TIRING  the  latter  part  of  "  the  winter  of  the 
J.-v'  deep  snow,"  Lincoln  became  acquainted 
with  one  Denton  Offutt,  an  adventurous  and  dis- 
cursive sort  of  merchant,  with  more  irons  in  the 
fire  than  he  could  well  manage.  He  wanted  to  take 
a  flat-boat  and  cargo  to  New  Orleans,  and  having 
heard  that  Hanks  and  Lincoln  had  some  experience 
of  the  river,  he  insisted  on  their  joining  him.  John 
Johnston  was  afterwards  added  to  the  party,  prob- 
ably at  the  request  of  his  foster-brother,  to  share 
in  the  golden  profits  of  the  enterprise;  for  fifty 
cents  a  day,  and  a  contingent  dividend  of  twenty 
dollars  apiece,  seemed  like  a  promise  of  immediate 
opulence  to  the  boys.  In  the  spring,  when  the 
rivers  broke  up  and  the  melting  snows  began  to 
pour  in  torrents  down  every  ravine  and  gully,  the 
three  young  men  paddled  down  the  Sangamon  in 
a  canoe  to  the  point  where  Jamestown  now  stands  ; 
whence  they  walked  five  miles  to  Springfield, 
where  Offutt  had  given  them  rendezvous.  They 
met  him  at  Elliott's  tavern  and  far  from  happy. 
Amid  the  multiplicity  of  his  engagements  he  had 
failed  to  procure  a  flat-boat,  and  the  first  work  his 
new  hands  must  do  was  to  build  one.    They  cut 

70 


NEW    SALEM  71 

the  timber,  with  frontier  innocence,  from  "Con-  chap.iv. 
gress  land,"  and  soon  had  a  serviceable  craft 
afloat,  with  which  they  descended  the  current  of 
the  Sangamon  to  New  Salem,  a  little  village 
which  seems  to  have  been  born  for  the  occasion, 
as  it  came  into  existence  just  before  the  arrival 
of  Lincoln,  flourished  for  seven  years  while  he 
remained  one  of  its  citizens,  and  died  soon  after 
he  went  away.  His  introduction  to  his  fellow- 
citizens  was  effected  in  a  peculiar  and  somewhat 
striking  manner.  Offutt's  boat  had  come  to  serious 
embarrassment  on  Rutledge's  mill-dam,  and  the  un- 
wonted incident  brought  the  entire  population  to 
the  water's  edge.  They  spent  a  good  part  of  the  day 
watching  the  hapless  flat-boat,  resting  midships  on 
the  dam,  the  forward  end  in  the  air  and  the  stern 
taking  in  the  turbid  Sangamon  water.  Nobody  knew 
what  to  do  with  the  disaster  except  "  the  bow-oar," 
who  is  described  as  a  gigantic  youth  "  with  his 
trousers  rolled  up  some  five  feet,"  who  was  wading 
about  the  boat  and  rigging  up  some  undescribed 
contrivance  by  which  the  cargo  was  unloaded,  the 
boat  tilted  and  the  water  let  out  by  boring  a  hole 
through  the  bottom,  and  everything  brought  safely 
to  moorings  below  the  dam.  This  exploit  gained  for 
young  Lincoln  the  enthusiastic  admiration  of  his 
employer,  and  turned  his  own  mind  in  the  direction 
of  an  invention  which  he  afterwards  patented  "  for 
lifting  vessels  over  shoals."  The  model  on  which 
he  obtained  this  patent  —  a  little  boat  whittled  by 
his  own  hand  in  1849,  after  he  had  become  promi- 
nent as  a  lawyer  and  politician  —  is  still  shown  to 
visitors  at  the  Department  of  the  Interior.  We  have 
never  learned  that  it  has  served  any  other  purpose. 


72 


ABKAHAM    LINCOLN 


Chap.  IV. 


Lamon, 
p.  83. 


They  made  a  quick  trip 
down  the  Sangamon,  the 
Illinois,  and  the  Missis- 
sippi rivers.  Although 
it  was  but  a  repetition 
in  great  part  of  the  trip 
young  Lincoln  had  made 
with  Grentry,  it  evidently 
created  a  far  deeper  im- 
pression on  his  mind  than 
the  former  one.  The  sim- 
ple and  honest  words  of 
John  Hanks  leave  no 
doubt  of  this.  At  New 
Orleans,  he  said,  they 
saw  for  the  first  time 
"  negroes  chained,  mal- 
treated, whipped,  and 
scourged.  Lincoln  saw 
it;  his  heart  bled;  said 
nothing  much,  was  silent, 
looked  bad.  I  can  say, 
knowing  it,  that  it  was  on 
this  trip  that  he  formed 
his  opinion  of  slavery. 
It  run  its  iron  in  him 
then    and    there,     May, 

1831.  I  have  heard  him  say  so  often."  The  sight 
of  men  in  chains  was  intolerable  to  him.  Ten 
years  after  this  he  made  another  journey  by 
water  with  his  friend  Joshua  Speed,  of  Kentucky. 
Writing  to  Speed  about  it  after  the  lapse  of  four- 
teen years,  he  says :  "  In  1841  you  and  I  had  to- 
gether a  tedious  low- water  trip  on  a  steamboat  from 


O 
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O 

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78 


74  ABEAHAM    LINCOLN 

Chap.  IV.  Louisville  to  St.  Louis.  You  may  remember,  as  I 
well  do,  that  from  Louisville  to  the  mouth  of  the 
Ohio  there  were  on  board  ten  or  a  dozen  slaves 
shackled  together  with  irons.  That  sight  was 
a  continual  torment  to  me,  and  I  see  something 
like  it  every  time  I  touch  the  Ohio  or  any  other 
slave  border.  It  is  not  fau*  for  you  to  assume 
that  I  have  no  interest  in  a  thing  which  has,  and 
continually  exercises,  the  power  of  making  me 
miserable." 

There  have  been  several  ingenious  attempts  to 
show  the  origin  and  occasion  of  Mr.  Lincoln's 
antislavery  convictions.  They  seem  to  us  an 
idle  waste  of  labor.  These  sentiments  came  with 
the  first  awakening  of  his  mind  and  conscience, 
and  were  roused  into  active  life  and  energy  by 
the  sight  of  fellow-creatures  in  chains  on  an 
Ohio  River  steamboat,  and  on  the  wharf  at  New 
Orleans. 

The  party  went  up  the  river  in  the  early  summer 
and  separated  in  St.  Louis.  Abraham  walked  in 
company  with  John  Johnston  from  St.  Louis  to 
Coles  County,  and  spent  a  few  weeks  there  with 
his  father,  who  had  made  another  migration  the 
year  before.  His  final  move  was  to  Goose  Nest 
Prairie,  where  he  died  in  1851,^  at  the  age  of  seventy- 
three  years,  after  a  life  which,  though  not  success- 
ful in  any  material  or  worldly  point  of  view,  was 
probably  far  happier  than  that  of  his  illustrious 
son,  being  unvexed  by  enterprise  or  ambition. 
Abraham  never  lost  sight  of  his  parents.  He  con- 
tinued to  aid  and  befriend  them  in  every  way,  even 

1  His  grave,  a  mile  and  a  half  propriate  monument  erected  by 
west  of  the  town  of  Farmington,  his  grandson,  the  Hon.  Eobert  T. 
Illinois,  is  surmoiinted  by  an  ap-    Lincoln. 


NEW    SALEM  75 

when  lie  could  ill  afford  it,  and  when  his  benef ac-  chaj-.  iv. 
tions  were  imprudently  used.  He  not  only  com- 
forted their  declining  years  with  every  aid  his 
affection  could  suggest,  but  he  did  everything  in 
his  power  to  assist  his  stepbrother  Johnston  —  a 
hopeless  task  enough.  The  following  rigidly  truth- 
ful and  yet  kindly  letters  will  show  how  mentor- 
like and  masterful,  as  well  as  generous,  were  the 
relations  that  Mr.  Lincoln  held  to  these  friends  and 
companions  of  his  childhood : 

Dear  Johnston  :  Your  request  for  eighty  dollars  I  do 
not  think  it  best  to  comply  with  now.  At  the  various 
times  when  I  have  helped  you  a  little,  you  have  said  to 
me,  "  We  can  get  along  very  well  now,"  but  in  a  very 
short  time  I  find  you  in  the  same  difficulty  again.  Now 
this  can  only  happen  by  some  defect  in  your  conduct. 
What  that  defect  is  I  think  I  know.  You  are  not  laztj, 
and  still  you  are  an  idler.  I  doubt  whether,  since  I  saw 
you,  you  have  done  a  good  whole  day's  work  in  any  one 
day.  You  do  not  very  much  dislike  to  work,  and  still 
you  do  not  work  much,  merely  because  it  does  not  seem 
to  you  that  you  could  get  much  for  it.  This  habit  of 
uselessly  wasting  time  is  the  whole  difficulty,  and  it  is 
vastly  important  to  you,  and  still  more  so  to  your  chil- 
dren, that  you  should  break  the  habit.  It  is  more  impor- 
tant to  them  because  they  have  longer  to  live,  and  can 
keep  out  of  an  idle  habit  before  they  are  in  it  easier  than 
they  can  get  out  after  they  are  in. 

You  are  now  in  need  of  some  money ;  and  what  I  pro- 
pose is  that  you  shall  go  to  work  "tooth  and  nail"  for 
somebody  who  will  give  you  money  for  it.  Let  father 
and  your  boys  take  charge  of  things  at  home,  prepare  for 
a  crop,  and  make  the  crop ;  and  you  go  to  work  for  the 
best  money  wages,  or  in  discharge  of  any  debt  you  owe, 
that  you  can  get ;  and  to  secure  you  a  fair  reward  for  your 
labor,  I  now  promise  you  that  for  every  dollar  you  will, 
between  this  and  the  first  of  next  May,  get  for  your  own 
labor,  either  in  money  or  as  discharging  your  own  indebted- 
ness, I  will  then  give  you  one  other  dollar.   By  this,  if  you 


76  ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

Chap.  IV.  hire  yourself  at  ten  dollars  a  month,  from  me  you  will 
get  ten  more,  making  twenty  dollars  a  month  for  your 
work.  In  this  I  do  not  mean  you  should  go  off  to 
St.  Louis,  or  the  lead  mines,  or  the  gold  mines  in  Cali- 
fornia ;  but  I  mean  for  you  to  go  at  it  for  the  best  wages 
you  can  get  close  to  home,  in  Coles  County.  Now,  if 
you  will  do  this  you  will  soon  be  out  of  debt,  and,  what 
is  better,  you  will  have  a  habit  that  will  keep  you  from 
getting  in  debt  again.  But  if  I  should  now  clear  you  out 
of  debt,  next  year  you  would  be  just  as  deep  in  as  ever. 
You  say  you  would  almost  give  your  place  in  heaven  for 
seventy  or  eighty  dollars.  Then  you  value  your  place 
in  heaven  very  cheap,  for  I  am  sure  you  can  with  the 
offer  I  make  get  the  seventy  or  eighty  dollars  for  four 
or  five  months'  work.  You  say  if  I  will  furnish  you 
the  money  you  will  deed  me  the  land,  and  if  you  don't 
pay  the  money  back  you  will  deliver  possession.  Nonsense. 
If  you  can't  now  live  with  the  land,  how  will  you  then 
live  without  it  ?  You  have  always  been  kind  to  me,  and 
I  do  not  mean  to  be  unkind  to  you.  On  the  contrary,  if 
you  will  but  follow  my  advice,  you  will  find  it  worth 
more  than  eighty  times  eighty  dollars  to  you. 

Here  is  a  later  epistle,  still  more  gi-aphic  and 
terse  in  statement,  which  has  the  unusual  merit  of. 
painting  both  confessor  and  penitent  to  the  life : 

Shelbyville,  Nov.  4,  1851. 
Dear  Brother:  When  I  came  into  Charleston,  day 
before  yesterday,  I  learned  that  you  were  anxious  to  sell 
the  land  where  you  live  and  move  to  Missouri.  I  have 
been  thinking  of  this  ever  since,  and  cannot  but  think 
such  a  notion  is  utterly  foolish.  What  can  you  do  in 
Missouri  better  than  here  ?  Is  the  land  any  richer  ?  Can 
you  there,  any  more  than  here,  raise  corn  and  wheat  and 
oats  without  work  I  WiU  anybody  there,  any  more  than 
here,  do  your  work  for  you?  If  you  intend  to  go  to 
work,  there  is  no  better  place  than  right  where  you 
are ;  if  you  do  not  intend  to  go  to  work,  you  cannot  get 
along  anywhere.  Squirming  and  crawHng  about  from 
place  to  place  can  do  no  good.  You  have  raised  no  crop 
this  year,  and  what  you  really  want  is  to  sell  the  land, 


NEW   SALEM  77 

get  the  money,  and  spend  it.  Part  with  the  land  you  chap.  iv. 
have,  and,  my  life  upon  it,  you  will  never  after  own  a 
spot  big  enough  to  bury  you  in.  Half  you  will  get  for 
the  land  you  will  spend  in  moving  to  Missouri,  and  the 
other  half  you  will  eat  and  drink  and  wear  out,  and  no 
foot  of  land  will  be  bought.  Now,  I  feel  it  is  my  duty 
to  have  no  hand  in  such  a  piece  of  foolery,  I  feel  that 
it  is  so  even  on  your  own  account,  and  particularly  on 
mother's  account.  The  eastern  forty  acres  I  intend  to 
keep  for  mother  while  she  lives ;  if  you  will  not  cultivate 
it,  it  will  rent  for  enough  to  support  her;  at  least, 
it  will  rent  for  something.  Her  dower  in  the  other 
two  forties  she  can  let  you  have,  and  no  thanks  to  me. 
Now  do  not  misunderstand  this  letter.  I  do  not  write  it 
in  any  unkindness.  I  write  it  in  order,  if  possible,  to 
get  you  to  face  the  truth,  which  truth  is,  j'^ou  are  destitute 
because  you  have  idled  away  all  your  time.  Your  thou- 
sand pretenses  deceive  nobody  but  yourself.  Go  to  work 
is  the  only  cure  for  your  case. 

A  volume  of  disquisition  could  not  put  more 
clearly  before  the  reader  the  difference  between 
Abraham  Lincoln  and  the  common  run  of  Southern 
and  Western  rural  laborers.  He  had  the  same  dis- 
.advantages  that  they  had.  He  grew  up  in  the 
midst  of  poverty  and  ignorance ;  he  was  poisoned 
with  the  enervating  malaria  of  the  Western  woods, 
as  all  his  fellows  were,  and  the  consequences  of  it 
were  seen  in  his  character  and  conduct  to  the  close 
of  his  life.  But  he  had,  what  very  few  of  them 
possessed  any  glimmering  notion  of,  a  fixed  and 
inflexible  will  to  succeed.  He  did  not  love  work, 
probably,  any  better  than  John  Johnston ;  but  he 
had  an  innate  self-respect,  and  a  consciousness  that 
his  self  was  worthy  of  respect,  that  kept  him  from 
idleness  as  it  kept  him  from  all  other  vices,  and 
made  him  a  better  man  every  year  that  he  lived. 

We  have  anticipated  a  score  of  years  in  speaking 


78  ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

Chap.  IV.  of  Ml*.  Lincoln's  relations  to  his  family.  It  was  in 
August  of  the  year  1831  that  he  finally  left  his 
father's  roof,  and  swung  out  for  himself  into  the 
current  of  the  world  to  make  his  fortune  in  his 
own  way.  He  went  down  to  New  Salem  again  to 
assist  Offutt  in  the  business  that  lively  specula- 
tor thought  of  establishing  there.  He  was  more 
punctual  than  either  his  employer  or  the  merchan- 
dise, and  met  with  the  usual  reward  of  punctuality 
in  being  forced  to  waste  his  time  in  waiting  for 
the  tardy  ones.  He  seemed  to  the  New  Salem 
people  to  be  "  loafing  " ;  several  of  them  have  given 
that  description  of  him.  He  did  one  day's  work 
acting  as  clerk  of  a  local  election,  a  lettered  loafer 
being  pretty  sure  of  employment  on  such  an 
occasion.^  He  also  piloted  a  boat  down  the  San- 
gamon for  one  Dr.  Nelson,  who  had  had  enough  of 
New  Salem  and  wanted  to  go  to  Texas.  This  was 
probably  a  task  not  requiring  much  pilot-craft,  as  the 
river  was  much  swollen,  and  navigators  had  in 
most  places  two  or  three  miles  of  channel  to  count 
upon.  But  Olfutt  and  his  goods  arrived  at  last, 
and  Lincoln  and  he  got  them  immediately  into 
position,  and  opened  their  doors  to  what  commerce 
could  be  found  in  New  Salem.  There  was  clearly 
not  enough  to  satisfy  the  volatile  mind  of  Mr. 
Offutt,  for  he  soon  bought  Cameron's  mill  at  the 
historic  dam,  and  made  Abraham  superintendent 
also  of  that  branch  of  the  business. 

1  Mrs.  Lizzie  H.  Bell  writes  of  come.    They  were  looking  around 

this  incident:  "  My  father,  Men-  for  a  man  to  fill  his  place  when 

ton  Graham,  was  on  that  day,  as  my  father  noticed   Mr.  Lincoln 

usual,  appointed  to  be   a  clerk,  and  asked  if  he  could  write.     He 

and  Mr.  McNamee,  who  was  to  be  answered  that  'he  could  make  a 

the  other,  was  sick  and  failed  to  few  rabbit  tracks.'  " 


NEW    SALEM  79 

It  is  to  be  surmised  that  Offutt  never  inspired  chap.iv. 
his  neighbors  and  customers  with  any  deep  regard 
for  his  solidity  of  character.  One  of  them  says  of 
him  with  injurious  pleonasm,  that  he  "  talked  too 
much  with  his  mouth."  A  natural  consequence  of 
his  excessive  fluency  was  soon  to  be  made  dis- 
agreeably evident  to  his  clerk.  He  admired  Abra- 
ham beyond  measure,  and  praised  him  beyond 
prudence.  He  said  that  Abe  knew  more  than  any 
man  in  the  United  States;  and  he  was  certainly 
not  warranted  in  making  such  an  assertion,  as  his 
own  knowledge  of  the  actual  state  of  science  in 
America  could  not  have  been  exhaustive.  He  also 
said  that  Abe  could  beat  any  man  in  the  county 
running,  jumping,  or  "wrastling."  This  proposi- 
tion, being  less  abstract  in  its  nature,  was  more 
readily  grasped  by  the  local  mind,  and  was  not 
likely  to  pass  unchallenged. 

Public  opinion  at  New  Salem  was  formed  by  a 
crowd  of  ruffianly  young  fellows  who  were  called 
the  "  Clary's  Grove  Boys."  Once  or  twice  a  week 
they  descended  upon  the  village  and  passed  the 
day  in  drinking,  fighting,  and  brutal  horse-play. 
If  a  stranger  appeared  in  the  place,  he  was  likely 
to  suffer  a  rude  initiation  into  the  social  life  of 
New  Salem  at  the  hands  of  these  jovial  savages. 
Sometimes  he  was  nailed  up  in  a  hogshead  and 
rolled  down  hill ;  sometimes  he  was  insulted  into  a 
fight  and  then  mauled  black  and  blue ;  for  despite 
their  pretentions  to  chivalry  they  had  no  scruples 
about  fair  play  or  any  such  superstitions  of  civil- 
ization. At  first  they  did  not  seem  inclined  to 
molest  young  Lincoln.  His  appearance  did  not 
invite  insolence;  his  reputation  for  strength  and 


80 


ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 


Chap.  IV.  activity  was  a  gi'eater  pro- 
tection to  Mm  than  his  in- 
offensive good-nature.  But 
the  loud  admiration  of 
Offutt  gave  them  umbrage. 
It  led  to  dispute,  contradic- 
tions, and  finally  to  a  formal 
banter  to  a  wrestling-match. 
Lincoln  was  greatly  averse 
to  all  this  "wool- 
ing  and  pulling," 
as  he  called  it. 
But  Offutt's  indis- 
cretion had  made 
it  necessary  for 
him  to  show  his 
mettle.  Jack  Arm- 
strong, the  leading 
bully  of  the  gang, 
was  selected  to 
throw  him,  and 
expected  an  easy 
victory.  But  he 
soon  found  him- 
seK  in  different 
hands  from  any 
he  had  heretofore 
engaged  with.  See- 
ing he  could  not 
manage  the  tall  stranger,  his  friends  swarmed  in, 
and  by  kicking  and  tripping  nearly  succeeded  in 
getting  Lincoln  down.  At  this,  as  has  been  said  of 
another  hero,  "  the  spirit  of  Odin  entered  into  him," 
and  putting  forth  his  whole  strength,  he  held  the 


NEW    SALEM  81 

pride  of  Clary's  Grove  in  his  arms  like  a  child,  and  chap.iv. 
almost  choked  the  exuberant  life  out  of  him.  For 
a  moment  a  general  fight  seemed  inevitable ;  but 
Lincoln,  standing  undismayed  with  his  back  to  the 
wall,  looked  so  formidable  in  his  defiance  that  an 
honest  admiration  took  the  place  of  momentary  fury, 
and  his  initiation  was  over.  As  to  Armstrong,  he 
was  Lincoln's  friend  and  sworn  brother  as  soon  as 
he  recovered  the  use  of  his  larynx,  and  the  bond 
thus  strangely  created  lasted  through  life.  Lincoln 
had  no  further  occasion  to  fight  his  own  battles 
while  Armstrong  was  there  to  act  as  his  champion. 
The  two  friends,  although  so  widely  different,  were 
helpful  to  each  other  afterwards  in  many  ways, 
and  Lincoln  made  ample  amends  for  the  liberty  his 
hands  had  taken  with  Jack's  throat,  by  saving,  in 
a  memorable  trial,  his  son's  neck  from  the  halter. 

This  incident,  trivial  and  vulgar  as  it  may  seem, 
was  of  great  importance  in  Lincoln's  life.  His 
behavior  in  this  ignoble  scuffle  did  the  work  of 
years  for  him,  in  giving  him  the  position  he 
required  in  the  community  where  his  lot  was  cast. 
He  became  from  that  moment,  in  a  certain  sense,  a 
personage,  with  a  name  and  standing  of  his  own. 
The  verdict  of  Clary's  Grove  was  unanimous  that 
he  was  "  the  cleverest  fellow  that  had  ever  broke 
into  the  settlement."  He  did  not  have  to  be  con- 
stantly scuffling  to  guard  his  self-respect,  and  at 
the  same  time  he  gained  the  good- will  of  the  better 
sort  by  his  evident  peaceableness  and  integrity. 

He  made  on  the  whole  a  satisfactory  clerk  for 
Mr.  Offutt,  though  his  downright  honesty  must 
have  seemed  occasionally  as  eccentric  in  that  posi- 
tion as  afterwards  it  did  to  his  associates  at  the 

Vol.  I.—  6 


X^V^"S^^^76^^^ 


mwn. 

•^^  •  1 2.— 10 


LEAP   FROM   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN'S   EXERCISE    BOOK. 

The  page  liere  shown  in  reduced  fae-simile  is  from 
the  Exercise  Book  presented  by  V-,  illiaiii  H.  Hemdon 
to  the  Keyes-Lincoln  Memorial  Collection.  When  the 
book  was  written  Lincoln  was  about  seventeen. 


82 


NEW    SALEM  83 

bar.  Dr.  Holland  has  preserved  one  or  two  inci-  chap.iv. 
dents  of  this  kind,  which  have  their  value.  Once, 
after  he  had  sold  a  woman  a  little  bill  of  goods  and 
received  the  money,  he  found  on  looking  over  the 
account  again  that  she  had  given  him  six  and  a 
quarter  cents  too  much.  The  money  burned  in  his 
hands  until  he  locked  the  shop  and  started  on  a 
walk  of  several  miles  in  the  night  to  make  restitu- 
tion before  he  slept.  On  another  occasion,  after 
weighing  and  delivering  a  pound  of  tea,  he  found 
a  small  weight  on  the  scales.  He  immediately 
weighed  out  the  quantity  of  tea  of  which  he  had 
innocently  defrauded  his  customer  and  went  in 
search  of  her,  his  sensitive  conscience  not  permit- 
ting any  delay.  To  show  that  the  young  merchant 
was  not  too  good  for  this  world,  the  same  writer 
gives  an  incident  of  his  shop-keeping  experience  of 
a  different  character.  A  rural  bully  having  made 
himself  especially  offensive  one  day,  when  women 
were  present,  by  loud  profanity,  Lincoln  requested 
him  to  be  silent.  This  was  of  course  a  cause  of 
war,  and  the  young  clerk  was  forced  to  follow  the 
incensed  ruffian  into  the  street,  where  the  combat 
was  of  short  duration.  Lincoln  threw  him  at  once 
to  the  ground,  and  gathering  a  handful  of  the  dog- 
fennel  with  which  the  roadside  was  plentifully  bor- 
dered, he  rubbed  the  ruffian's  face  and  eyes  with  it 
until  he  howled  for  mercy.  He  did  not  howl  in 
vain,  for  the  placable  giant,  when  his  discipline 
was  finished,  brought  water  to  bathe  the  culprit's 
smarting  face,  and  doubtless  improved  the  occasion 
with  quaint  admonition. 

A  few  passages  at  arms  of  this  sort  gave  Abra- 
ham a  redoubtable  reputation  in  the  neighborhood. 


84  ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

Chap.  IV.  But  the  principal  use  he  made  of  his  strength  and 
his  prestige  was  in  the  capacity  of  peacemaker,  an 
office  which  soon  devolved  upon  him  by  general 
consent.  Whenever  old  feuds  blossomed  into  fights 
by  Offutt's  door,  or  the  chivalry  of  Clary's  Grove 
attempted  in  its  energetic  way  to  take  the  conceit 
out  of  some  stranger,  or  a  canine  duel  spread  con- 
tagion of  battle  among  the  masters  of  the  beasts, 
Lincoln  usually  appeared  upon  the  scene,  and  with 
a  judicious  mixture  of  force  and  reason  and  invinci- 
ble good-nature  restored  peace. 

While  working  with  Offutt  his  mind  was  turned 
in  the  direction  of  English  grammar.  From  what 
he  had  heard  of  it  he  thought  it  a  matter  within 
his  grasp,  if  he  could  once  fall  in  with  the  requisite 
machinery.  Consulting  with  Menton^  Graham,  the 
schoolmaster,  in  regard  to  it,  and  learning  the 
whereabouts  of  a  vagrant  "  Kirkham's  Grammar," 
he  set  off  at  once  and  soon  returned  from  a  walk 
of  a  dozen  miles  with  the  coveted  prize.  He 
devoted  himself  to  the  new  study  with  that  pecu- 
liar intensity  of  application  which  always  remained 
his  most  valuable  faculty,  and  soon  knew  all  that 
can  be  known  about  it  from  rules.  He  seemed  sur- 
prised, as  others  have  been,  at  the  meager  dimen- 
sions of  the  science  he  had  acquired  and  the  ease 
with  which  it  yielded  all  there  was  of  it  to  the 
student.  But  it  seemed  no  slight  achievement  to 
the  New  Salemites,  and  contributed  not  a  little  to 
the  prevalent  impression  of  his  learning. 

His  name  is  prominently  connected  with  an 
event  which  just  at  this  time  caused  an  excitement 

1  This  name  has  always  been  daughter,  Mrs.  Bell,  says  that 
written  in  Illinois  "Miuter,"  but  her  father's  name  is  as  given  in 
a    letter    from     Mr.     Graham's    the  text. 


NEW    SALEM  85 

and  interest  in  Salem  and  the  neighboring  towns  cuap.iv. 
entirely  out  of  proportion  to  its  importance.  It 
was  one  of  the  articles  of  faith  of  most  of  the 
settlers  on  the  banks  of  the  Sangamon  River  that 
it  was  a  navigable  stream,  and  the  local  politicians 
found  that  they  could  in  no  way  more  easily  hit 
the  fancy  of  their  hearers  than  by  discussing  this 
assumed  fact,  and  the  logical  corollary  derived  from 
it,  that  it  was  the  duty  of  the  State  or  the  nation 
to  clear  out  the  snags  and  give  free  course  to  the 
commerce  which  was  waiting  for  an  opportunity 
to  pour  along  this  natural  highway.  At  last  one 
Captain  Vincent  Bogue,  of  Springfield,  determined 
to  show  that  the  thing  could  be  done  by  doing  it. 
The  first  promise  of  the  great  enterprise  appears  in 
the  "  Sangamo  Journal "  of  January  26,  1832,  in  a 
letter  from  the  Captain,  at  Cincinnati,  saying  he 
would  ascend  the  Sangamon  by  steam  on  the 
breaking  up  of  the  ice.  He  asked  that  he  might 
be  met  at  the  mouth  of  the  river  by  ten  or  twelve 
men,  having  axes  with  long  handles,  to  cut  away 
the  overhanging  branches  of  the  trees  on  the 
banks.  From  this  moment  there  was  great  excite- 
ment,—  public  meetings,  appointment  of  commit- 
tees, appeals  for  subscriptions,  and  a  scattering 
fire  of  advertisements  of  goods  and  freight  to  be 
bargained  for, —  which  sustained  the  prevailing 
interest.  It  was  a  day  of  hope  and  promise  when 
the  advertisement  reached  Springfield  from  Cin- 
cinnati that  "the  splendid  upper-cabin  steamer 
Talisman''''  would  positively  start  for  the  Sangamon 
on  a  given  day.  As  the  paper  containing  this  joy- 
ous intelligence  also  complained  that  no  mail  had 
reached  Springfield  from  the  east  for  three  weeks, 


86  AEKAHAM    LINCOLN 

Chap.  IV.  it  is  easy  to  understand  the  desire  for  more  rapid 
and  regular  communications.  From  week  to  week 
the  progress  of  the  Talisman,  impeded  by  bad 
weather  and  floating  ice,  was  faithfully  recorded, 
until  at  last  the  party  with  long-handled  axes 
went  down  to  Beardstown  to  welcome  her.  It  is 
needless  to  state  that  Lincoln  was  one  of  the  party. 
His  standing  as  a  scientific  citizen  of  New  Salem 
would  have  been  enough  to  insure  his  selection 
even  if  he  had  not  been  known  as  a  bold  navigator. 
He  piloted  the  Talisman  safely  through  the  wind- 
ings of  the  Sangamon,  and  Springfield  gave  itself 
up  to  extravagant  gayety  on  the  event  that  proved 
she  "  could  no  longer  be  considered  an  inland 
town."  Captain  Bogue  announced  "  fresh  and 
seasonable  goods  just  received  per  steamboat 
Talisman,''^  and  the  local  poets  illuminated  the 
columns  of  the  "  Jouimal "  with  odes  on  her  advent. 
The  joy  was  short-lived.  The  Talisman  met  the 
natural  fate  of  steamboats  a  few  months  later, 
being  burned  at  the  St.  Louis  wharf.  Neither 
State  nor  nation  has  ever  removed  the  snags  from 
the  Sangamon,  and  no  subsequent  navigator  of  its 
waters  has  been  found  to  eclipse  the  fame  of  the 
earliest  one. 


CHAPTEE  V 

LINCOLN  m  THE  BLACK  HAWK  WAR 

ANEW  period  in  the  life  of  Lincoln  begins    chap.  v. 
with  the  summer  of  1832.    He  then  obtained       1832. 
his  first  public  recognition,  and  entered  upon  the 
course  of  life  which  was  to  lead  him  to  a  position 
of  prominence  and  great  usefulness. 

The  business  of  Offutt  had  gone  to  pieces,  and 
his  clerk  was  out  of  employment,  when  Governor 
Reynolds  issued  his  call  for  volunteers  to  move  the 
tribe  of  Black  Hawk  across  the  Mississippi.  For 
several  years  the  raids  of  the  old  Sac  chieftain  upon 
that  portion  of  his  patrimony  which  he  had  ceded  to 
the  United  States  had  kept  the  settlers  in  the  neigh- 
borhood of  Rock  Island  in  terror,  and  menaced  the 
peace  of  the  frontier.  In  the  spring  of  1831  he 
came  over  to  the  east  side  of  the  river  with  a  con- 
siderable band  of  warriors,  having  been  encoui'aged 
by  secret  promises  of  cooperation  from  several  other 
tribes.  These  failed  him,  however,  when  the  time 
of  trial  arrived,  and  an  improvised  force  of  State 
volunteers,  assisted  by  General  E.  P.  Gaines  and 
his  detachment,  had  little  difficulty  in  compelling 
the  Indians  to  recross  the  Mississippi,  and  to  enter 
into  a  solemn  treaty  on  the  30th  of  June  by  which 
the  former  treaties  were  ratified  and  Black  Hawk 

87 


88 


ABKAHAM    LINCOLN 


Chap.  V. 


Reynolds, 

"  Lile  and 

Times," 

p.  325. 


Ford, 
'History  of 
Illinois," 

p.  110. 


and  his  leading  warriors  bound  themselves  never 
again  to  set  foot  on  the  east  side  of  the  river,  with- 
out express  permission  from  the  President  or  the 
Governor  of  Illinois. 

But  Black  Hawk  was  too  old  a  savage  to  learn 
respect  for  treaties  or  resignation  under  fancied 
wrongs.  He  was  already  approaching  the  allotted 
term  of  life.  He  had  been  a  chief  of  his  nation  for 
more  than  forty  years.  He  had  scalped  his  first 
enemy  when  scarcely  more  than  a  child,  having 
painted  on  his  blanket  the  blood-red  hand  which 
marked  his  nobility  at  fifteen  years  of  age.  Peace 
under  any  circumstances  would  doubtless  have  been 
irksome  to  him,  but  a  peace  which  forbade  him  free 
access  to  his  own  hunting-grounds  and  to  the 
graves  of  his  fathers  was  more  than  he  could  now 
school  himself  to  endure.  He  had  come  to  believe 
that  he  had  been  foully  wronged  by  the  treaty 
which  was  his  own  act ;  he  had  even  convinced  him- 
self that  "land  cannot  be  sold," a  proposition  in  polit- 
ical economy  which  our  modern  socialists  would  be 
puzzled  to  accept  or  confute.  Besides  this,  the  ten- 
derest  feelings  of  his  heart  were  outraged  by  this 
exclusion  from  his  former  domain.  He  had  never 
passed  a  year  since  the  death  of  his  daughter  with- 
out making  a  pilgrimage  to  her  grave  at  Oquawka 
and  spending  hours  in  mystic  ceremonies  and  con- 
templation. He  was  himself  prophet  as  well  as  war- 
rior, and  had  doubtless  his  share  of  mania,  which  is 
the  strength  of  prophets.  The  promptings  of  his 
own  broken  heart  readily  seemed  to  him  the  whisper- 
ings of  attendant  spirits ;  and  day  by  day  these  un- 
seen incitements  increased  around  him,  until  they 
could  not  be  resisted  even  if  death  stood  in  the  way. 


LINCOLN    IN    THE    BLACK    HAWK   WAE  89 

He  made  his  combinations  during  the  winter,  and  chap.  v. 
had  it  not  been  for  the  loyal  attitude  of  Keokuk,  he 
could  have  brought  the  entire  nation  of  the  Sacs 
and  Foxes  to  the  war-path.  As  it  was,  the  flower 
of  the  young  men  came  with  him  when,  with  the 
opening  spring,  he  crossed  the  river  once  more.  He 
came  this  time,  he  said,  "  to  plant  corn,"  but  as  a 
preliminary  to  this  peaceful  occupation  of  the  land 
he  marched  up  the  Rock  River,  expecting  to  be 
joined  by  the  Winnebagoes  and  Pottawatomies. 
But  the  time  was  passed  for  honorable  alliances 
among  the  Indians.  His  oath-bound  confederates 
gave  him  little  assistance,  and  soon  cast  in  their 
lot  with  the  stronger  party. 

This  movement  excited  general  alarm  in  the  State. 
General  Henry  Atkinson,  commanding  the  United 
States  troops,  sent  a  formal  summons  to  Black 
Hawk  to  return ;  but  the  old  chief  was  abeady  well 
on  his  way  to  the  lodge  of  his  friend,  the  prophet 
Wabokishick,  atProphetstown,  and  treated  the  sum- 
mons with  contemptuous  defiance.  The  Governor 
immediately  called  for  volunteers,  and  was  him- 
self astonished  at  the  alacrity  with  which  the  call 
was  answered.  Among  those  who  enlisted  at  the 
first  tap  of  the  drum  was  Abraham  Lincoln,  and 
equally  to  his  surprise  and  delight  he  was  elected 
captain  of  his  company.  The  volunteer  organiza- 
tions of  those  days  were  conducted  on  purely 
democratic  principles.  The  company  assembled 
on  the  green,  an  election  was  suggested,  and  three- 
fourths  of  the  men  walked  over  to  where  Lincoln 
was  standing ;  most  of  the  small  remainder  joined 
themselves  to  one  Kirkpatrick,  a  man  of  some  sub- 
stance and  standing  from  Spring  Creek.    We  have 


90 


ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 


Chap.  V. 


Reynolds, 

•'  Life  aud 

Times," 

p.  356. 


the  word  of  Mr.  Lincoln  for  it,  that  no  subsequent 
success  ever  gave  him  such  unmixed  pleasure  as 
this  earliest  distinction.  It  was  a  sincere,  unsought 
tribute  of  his  equals  to  those  physical  and  moral 
qualities  which  made  him  the  best  man  of  his  hun- 
dred, and  as  such  was  accepted  and  prized. 

At  the  Beardstown  rendezvous,  Captain  Lincoln's 
company  was  attached  to  Colonel  Samuel  Thomp- 
son's regiment,  the  Fourth  Illinois,  which  was  organ- 
ized at  Richland,  Sangamon  County,  on  the  21st  of 
April,  and  moved  on  the  27th,  with  the  rest  of  the 
command  under  General  Samuel  Whitesides,  for 
Yellow  Banks,  where  the  boats  with  provisions  had 
been  ordered  to  meet  them.  It  was  arduous  march- 
ing. There  were  no  roads  and  no  bridges,  and  the 
day's  task  included  a  gi-eat  deal  of  labor.  The 
third  day  out  they  came  to  the  Henderson  River, 
a  stream  some  fifty  yards  wide,  swift  and  swollen 
with  the  spring  thaws,  with  high  and  steep  banks. 
To  most  armies  this  would  have  seemed  a  serious 
obstacle,  but  these  backwoodsmen  swarmed  to  the 
work  like  beavers,  and  in  less  than  three  hours  the 
river  was  crossed  with  the  loss  of  only  one  or  two 
horses  and  wagons.  When  they  came  to  Yellow 
Banks,  on  the  Mississippi,  the  provision-boats  had 
not  arrived,  and  for  three  days  they  waited  there 
literally  without  food  ;  very  uncomfortable  days 
for  Governor  Reynolds,  who  accompanied  the  ex- 
pedition, and  was  forced  to  hear  the  outspoken 
comments  of  two  thousand  hungry  men  on  his 
supposed  inefficiency.  But  on  the  6th  of  May 
the  William  Wallace  arrived,  and  "  this  sight,"  says 
the  Governor  with  characteristic  sincerity,  "  was, 
I  presume,  the  most  interesting  I  ever  beheld." 


LINCOLN    IN    THE    BLACK    HAWK    WAE  91 

From  there  they  marched  to  the  mouth  of  Eock  chap.  v. 
Eiver,  and  thence  Greneral  Whitesides  proceeded 
with  his  volunteers  up  the  river  some  ninety  miles 
to  Dixon,  where  they  halted  to  await  the  arrival  of 
General  Atkinson  with  the  regular  troops  and  pro- 
visions. There  they  found  two  battalions  of  fresh 
horsemen  under  Majors  Stillman  and  Bailey,  who 
had  as  yet  seen  no  service  and  were  eager  for  the 
fray.  Whitesides's  men  were  tired  with  their  forced 
march,  and  besides,  in  their  ardor  to  get  forward, 
they  had  thrown  away  a  good  part  of  their  pro- 
visions and  left  their  baggage  behind.  It  pleased 
the  Governor,  therefore,  to  listen  to  the  prayers  of 
Stillman's  braves,  and  he  gave  them  orders  to 
proceed  to  the  head  of  Old  Man's  Creek,  where  it 
was  supposed  there  were  some  hostile  Indians,  and 
coerce  them  into  submission.  "  I  thought,"  says 
the  Governor  in  his  memoirs, "  they  might  discover 
the  enemy." 

The  supposition  was  certainly  well  founded. 
They  rode  merrily  away,  came  to  Old  Man's  Creek, 
thereafter  to  be  called  Stillman's  Run,  and  en- 
camped for  the  night.  By  the  failing  light  a  small 
party  of  Indians  was  discovered  on  the  summit  of 
a  hill  a  mile  away,  and  a  few  courageous  gentle- 
men hurriedly  saddled  their  horses,  and,  without 
orders,  rode  after  them.  The  Indians  retreated, 
but  were  soon  overtaken,  and  two  or  three  of  them 
killed.  The  volunteers  were  now  strung  along  a 
half  mile  of  hill  and  valley,  with  no  more  order  or 
care  than  if  they  had  been  chasing  rabbits.  Black 
Hawk,  who  had  been  at  supper  when  the  running 
fight  began,  hastily  gathered  a  handful  of  warriors 
and  attacked  the  scattered  whites.    The  onset  of 


92 


LINCOLN    IN    THE    BLACK    HAWK    WAR  93 

the  savages  acted  like  an  icy  bath  on  the  red-hot  chap.  v. 
valor  of  the  volunteers ;  they  turned  and  ran  for 
their  lives,  stampeding  the  camp  as  they  fled. 
There  was  very  little  resistance  —  so  little  that 
Black  Hawk,  fearing  a  ruse,  tried  to  recall  his 
warriors  from  the  pursuit,  but  in  the  darkness  and 
confusion  could  not  enforce  his  orders.  The 
Indians  killed  all  they  caught  up  with;  but  the 
volunteers  had  the  fleeter  horses,  and  only  eleven 
were  overtaken.  The  rest  reached  Dixon  by  twos 
and  threes,  rested  all  night,  and  took  courage. 
General  Whitesides  marched  out  to  the  scene  of 
the  disaster  the  next  morning,  but  the  Indians 
were  gone.  They  had  broken  up  into  small  parties, 
and  for  several  days  they  reaped  the  bloody  fruit 
of  their  victory  in  the  massacre  of  peaceful  settle- 
ments in  the  adjacent  districts. 

The  time  of  enlistment  of  the  volunteers  had 
now  come  to  an  end,  and  the  men,  seeing  no  pros- 
pect of  glory  or  profit,  and  weary  of  the  work  and 
the  hunger  which  were  the  only  certain  incidents 
of  the  campaign,  refused  in  great  part  to  continue  in 
service.  But  it  is  hardly  necessary  to  say  that 
Captain  Lincoln  was  not  one  of  these  homesick 
soldiers.  Not  even  the  trammels  of  rank,  which 
are  usually  so  strong  among  the  trailers  of  the 
saber,  could  restrain  him  from  what  he  considered 
his  simple  duty.  As  soon  as  he  was  mustered  out 
of  his  captaincy,  he  reenlisted  on  the  same  day. 
May  27,  as  a  private  soldier.  Several  other  ofiicers 
did  the  same,  among  them  G-eneral  Whitesides  and 
Major  John  T.  Stuart.  Lincoln  became  a  member  of 
Captain  Elijah  Iles's  company  of  mounted  volun- 
teers, sometimes  called  the  "  Independent  Spy  Bat- 


94  ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

chap.v.  talion,"  an  organization  unique  of  its  kind,  if  we 
may  judge  from  the  account  given  by  one  of  its 
troopers.  It  was  not,  says  Mr.  George  M.  Harrison, 
"  under  the  control  of  any  regiment  or  brigade,  but 
received  orders  directly  from  the  Commander-in- 
Chief,  and  always,  when  with  the  army,  camped 
within  the  lines,  and  had  many  other  privileges, 
such  as  having  no  camp  duties  to  perform  and 
drawing  rations  as  much  and  as  often  as  we 
pleased,"  which  would  seem  to  liken  this  battalion 
as  nearly  as  possible  to  the  fabled  "  regiment  of 
brigadiers."  With  this  elite  corps  Lincoln  served 
through  his  second  enlistment,  though  it  was  not 
his  fortune  to  take  part  in  either  of  the  two 
engagements  in  which  G-eneral  James  D.  Henry, 
at  the  Wisconsin  Bluffs  and  the  Bad  Axe,  broke 
and  destroyed  forever  the  power  of  Black  Hawk 
and  the  British  band  of  Sacs  and  Foxes. 

After  Lincoln  was  relieved  of  the  weight 
of  dignity  involved  in  his  captaincy,  the  war 
became  a  sort  of  holiday,  and  the  tall  private 
from  New  Salem  enjoyed  it  as  much  as  any  one. 
He  entered  with  great  zest  into  the  athletic  sports 
with  which  soldiers  love  to  beguile  the  tedium  of 
camp.  He  was  admitted  to  be  the  strongest  man 
in  the  army,  and,  with  one  exception,  the  best 
wrestler.  Indeed,  his  friends  never  admitted  the 
exception,and  severely  blamed  Lincoln  for  confess- 
ing himself  defeated  on  the  occasion  when  he  met 
the  redoubtable  Thompson,  and  the  two  fell 
together  on  the  turf.  His  popularity  increased 
from  the  beginning  to  the  end  of  the  campaign, 
and  those  of  his  comrades  who  still  survive  always 
speak  with  hearty  and  affectionate  praise  of  his 


LINCOLN    IN    THE    BLACK    HAWK    WAB  95 

character  and  conduct  in  those  rough  yet  pleasantly    chap.  v. 
remembered  days. 

The  Spy  Battalion  formed  no  part  of  General 
Henry's  forces  when,  by  a  disobedience  of  orders 
as  prudent  as  it  was  audacious,  he  started  with  his 
slender  force  on  the  fresh  trail  which  he  was  sure 
would  lead  him  to  Black  Hawk's  camp.  He  found 
and  struck  the  enemy  at  bay  on  the  bluffs  of  the 
Wisconsin  River  on  the  21st  of  July,  and  inflicted 
upon  them  a  signal  defeat.  The  broken  remnant 
of  Black  Hawk's  power  then  fled  for  the  Missis- 
sippi River,  the  whole  army  following  in  close  pur- 
suit—  Greneral  Atkinson  in  front  and  General 
Henry  bringing  up  the  rear.  Fortune  favored  the 
latter  once  more,  for  while  Black  Hawk  with  a 
handful  of  men  was  engaging  and  drawing  away 
the  force  under  Atkinson,  General  Henry  struck 
the  main  trail,  and  brought  on  the  battle  of  the 
Bad  Axe,  if  that  could  be  called  a  battle  which  was 
an  easy  slaughter  of  the  weary  and  discouraged 
savages,  fighting  without  heart  or  hope,  an  army  in 
front  and  the  great  river  behind.  Black  Hawk 
escaped  the  fate  of  his  followers,  to  be  captured  a 
few  days  later  through  the  treachery  of  his  allies. 
He  was  carried  in  triumph  to  Washington  and  pre- 
sented to  President  Jackson,  to  whom  he  made 
this  stern  and  defiant  speech,  showing  how  little 
age  or  disaster  could  do  to  tame  his  indomitable 
spirit :  "  I  am  a  man  and  you  are  another.  I  did 
not  expect  to  conquer  the  white  people.  I  took 
up  the  hatchet  to  avenge  injuries  which  could  no 
longer  be  borne.-^     Had  I  borne  them  longer  my 

1  It  is  a  noteworthy  coincidence  calls  for  troops  "to  redress 
that  President  Lincoln's  procla-  wrongs  already  long  enough  en- 
mation  at  the  opening  of  the  war    dured." 


96  ABKAHAM    LINCOLN 

Chap.  V.    people  would  have  said :  '  Black  Hawk  is  a  squaw ; 

he  is  too  old  to  be  a  chief ;  he  is  no  Sac'    This 

caused  me  to  raise  the  war-whoop.    I  say  no  more 

of  it ;  all  is  known  to  you."    He  returned  to  Iowa, 

and  died  on  the  3d  of  October,  1838,  at  his  camp 

on  the  river  Des  Moines.    He  was  buried  in  gala 

di^ess,  with  cocked  hat  and  sword,  and  the  medals 

presented  him  by  two  governments.    He  was  not 

allowed  to  rest  even  in  his  grave.    His  bones  were 

MS.  letters   cxhumcd  by  some  greedy  wretch  and  sold  from 

Thomas     hand  to  hand  till  they  came  at  last  to  the  Burling- 

otiera"     tou  Muscum,  wherc  they  were  destroyed  by  fire. 

It  was  on  the  16th  of  June,  a  month  before  the 
slaughter  of  the  Bad  Axe,  that  the  battalion  to 
which  Lincoln  belonged  was  at  last  mustered  out, 
at  Whitewater,  Wisconsin.  His  final  release  from 
the  service  was  signed  by  a  young  lieutenant  of 
artillery,  Eobert  Anderson,  who,  twenty-nine  years 
later,  in  one  of  the  most  awful  crises  in  our  annals, 
was  to  sustain  to  Lincoln  relations  of  prodigious 
importance,  on  a  scene  illuminated  by  the  flash 
of  the  opening  guns  of  the  civil  war.^     The  men 

lA  story  to  the  effect  that  gamon  County,  Illinois,  April  21, 
Lincoln  was  mustered  into  serv-  1832.  The  muster-in  roll  is  not 
ice  by  Jefferson  Davis  has  for  a  on  file,  but  the  records  show  that 
long  time  been  current,  but  the  the  company  was  mustered  out 
strictest  search  in  the  records  at  the  mouth  of  Fox  River,  May 
fails  to  confirm  it.  We  are  27,  1832,  by  Nathaniel  Buck- 
indebted  to  General  R.  C.  Drum,  master,  Brigade-Major  to  General 
Adjutant-General  of  the  Army,  Samuel  Whitesides's  Illinois  Vol- 
for  an  interesting  letter  giving  unteers.  On  the  muster-roll  of 
all  the  known  facts  in  relation  to  Captain  Elijah  Ees's  company, 
this  story.  General  Drum  says :  Illinois  Mounted  Volunteers,  A. 
"The  company  of  the  Fourth  Lincoln  (Sangamon  County) 
Regiment  Illinois  Mounted  Vol-  appears  as  a  private  from  May 
unteers,  commanded  by  Mr.  27,  1832,  to  June  16,  1832, 
Lincoln,  was,  with  others,  called  when  the  company  was  mustered 
out  by  Governor  Reynolds,  and  out  of  service  by  Lieutenant 
was  organized  at  Richland,  San-  Robert  Anderson,  Third  United 


BLACK    HAWK. 


Of  ^HE 


!   tM->l?? 


LINCOLN    IN    THE    BLACK    HAWK   WAK 


97 


started  home  the  next  day  in  high  spirits,  like  chap.  v. 
school-boys  for  their  holidays.  Lincoln  had  need, 
like  Horatio,  of  his  good  spirits,  for  they  were  his 
only  outfit  for  the  long  journey  to  New  Salem,  he 
and  his  mess-mate  Harrison-^  having  had  their 
horses  stolen  the  day  before  by  some  patriot  over- 
anxious to  reach  home.  But,  as  Harrison  says,  "  I 
laughed  at  our  fate,  and  he  joked  at  it,  and  we  all 
started  off  merrily.  The  generous  men  of  our  com- 
pany walked  and  rode  by  turns  with  us,  and  we 
fared  about  equal  with  the  rest.  But  for  this  gen- 
erosity our  legs  would  have  had  to  do  the  better 
work ;  for  in  that  day  this  dreary  route  furnished 
no  horses  to  buy  or  to  steal ;  and,  whether  on  horse 


States  Artillery  and  Colonel 
(Assistant  Inspector -General) 
Illinois  Volunteers.  Brigadier- 
General  Henry  Atkinson,  in  his 
report  of  May  30,  1832,  stated 
that  the  Illinois  Volunteers  were 
called  out  by  the  Governor  of 
that  State,  but  in  haste  and  for 
no  definite  period  of  service.  On 
their  arrival  at  Ottawa  they 
became  clamorous  for  their  dis- 
charge, which  the  Governor 
granted,  retaining —  of  those  who 
were  discharged  and  volunteered 
for  a  further  period  of  twenty 
days  —  a  sufficient  number  of  men 
to  form  six  companies,  which 
General  Atkinson  found  at  Ottawa 
on  his  arrival  there  from  Rock 
River.  General  Atkinson  further 
reports  that  these  companies  and 
some  three  hundred  regular 
troops,  remaining  in  position  at 
Rock  River,  were  all  the  force 
left  him  to  keep  the  enemy  in 
check  until  the  assemblage  of  the 
three  thousand  additional  Illinois 
militia  called  out  by  the  Governor 
upon  his  (General  A.'s)  requisi- 

Vol.  I. —7 


tion,  to  rendezvous  at  Ottawa, 
June  12-15,  1832. 

"There  can  be  no  doubt  that 
Captain  Iles's  company,  men- 
tioned above,  was  one  of  the  six 
which  served  until  June  16, 
1832,  while  the  fact  is  fully 
established  that  the  company  of 
which  Mr.  Lincoln  was  a  member 
was  mustered  out  by  Lieutenant 
Robert  Anderson,  who,  in  April, 
1861,  was  in  command  of  Fort 
Sumter.  There  is  no  evidence  to 
show  that  it  was  mustered  in  by 
Lieutenant  Jefferson  Davis.  Mr. 
Davis's  company  (B,  First  United 
States  Infantry)  was  stationed  at 
Fort  Crawford,  Wisconsin,  during 
the  months  of  January  and  Feb- 
ruary, 1832,  and  he  is  borne  on 
the  rolls  as  '  absent  on  detached 
service  at  the  Dubuque  mines  by 
order  of  Colonel  Morgan.'  From 
March  26  to  August  18,  1832, 
the  muster-rolls  ofihis  company  re- 
port him  as  absent  on  furlough." 

1  George  M.  Harrison,  who 
gives  an  account  of  his  personal 
experiences  in  Lamon,  p.  116. 


98  ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

Chap.  V.  or  afoot,  WG  always  had  company,  for  many  of  the 
horses'  backs  were  too  sore  for  riding."  It  is  not 
hard  to  imagine  with  what  quips  and  quirks  of 
native  fancy  Lincoln  and  his  friends  beguiled  the 
way  through  forest  and  prairie.  With  youth,  good 
health,  and  a  clear  conscience,  and  even  then  the 
dawn  of  a  young  and  undefiled  ambition  in  his 
heart,  nothing  was  wanting  to  give  zest  and  spice 
to  this  long,  sociable  walk  of  a  hundred  leagues. 
One  joke  is  preserved,  and  this  one  is  at  the 
expense  of  Lincoln.  One  chilly  morning  he  com- 
plained of  being  cold.  "No  wonder,"  said  some 
facetious  cavalier,  "  there  is  so  much  of  you  on  the 
ground."  ^  We  hope  Lincoln's  contributions  to  the 
fun  were  better  than  this,  but  of  course  the  pros- 
perity of  these  jests  lay  rather  in  the  liberal  ears 
that  heard  them  than  in  the  good-natured  tongues 
that  uttered  them. 

Lincoln  and  Harrison  could  not  have  been  alto- 
gether penniless,  for  at  Peoria  they  bought  a  canoe 
and  paddled  down  to  Pekin.  Here  the  ingenious 
Lincoln  employed  his  hereditary  talent  for  car- 
pentry by  making  an  oar  for  the  frail  vessel  while 
Harrison  was  providing  the  commissary  stores. 
The  latter  goes  on  to  say:  "The  river,  being  very 
low,  was  without  current,  so  that  we  had  to  pull 
hard  to  make  half  the  speed  of  legs  on  land ;  in 
fact,  we  let  her  float  all  night,  and  on  the  next 
morning  always  found  the  objects  still  visible  that 
were  beside  us  the  previous  evening.  The  water 
was  remarkably  clear  for  this  river  of  plants,  and 
the  fish  appeared  to  be  sporting  with  us  as  we 

1  Dr.  Holland  gives  this  homely  later,  when  Lincoln  had  perma- 
joke  (Life  of  Lincoln,  p.  71),  but  nently  assumed  shoes  and  had  a 
transfers  it  to  a  time  four  years    horse  of  his  own. 


LINCOLN    IN    THE    BLACK    HAWK  WAR  99 

moved  over  or  near  them.  On  the  next  day  after  chap.  v. 
we  left  Pekin  we  overhauled  a  raft  of  saw-logs, 
with  two  men  afloat  on  it  to  urge  it  on  with  poles 
and  to  guide  it  in  the  channel.  We  immediately 
pulled  up  to  them  and  went  on  the  raft,  where  we 
were  made  welcome  by  various  demonstrations, 
especially  by  an  invitation  to  a  feast  on  fish,  corn- 
bread,  eggs,  butter,  and  coffee,  just  prepared  for 
our  benefit.  Of  these  good  things  we  ate  almost 
immoderately,  for  it  was  the  only  warm  meal  we 
had  made  for  several  days.  While  preparing  it, 
and  after  dinner,  Lincoln  entertained  them,  and 
they  entertained  us  for  a  couple  of  hours  very 
amusingly."  Kindly  human  companionship  was  a 
luxury  in  that  green  wilderness,  and  was  readily 
appreciated  and  paid  for. 

The  returning  warriors  dropped  down  the  river 
to  the  village  of  Havana  —  from  Pekin  to  Havana 
in  a  canoe !  The  country  is  full  of  these  geograph- 
ical nightmares,  the  necessary  result  of  freedom  of 
nomenclature  bestowed  by  circumstances  upon 
minds  equally  destitute  of  taste  or  education. 
There  they  sold  their  boat, — no  difficult  task,  for  a 
canoe  was  a  staple  article  in  any  river-town, — and 
again  set  out  "  the  old  way,  over  the  sand-ridges, 
for  Petersburg.  As  we  drew  near  home,  the  im- 
pulse became  stronger  and  urged  us  on  amazingly. 
The  long  strides  of  Lincoln,  often  slipping  back  in 
the  loose  sand  six  inches  every  step,  were  just 
right  for  me  ;  and  he  was  greatly  diverted  when  he 
noticed  me  behind  him  stepping  along  in  his  tracks 
to  keep  from  slipping."  Thus  the  two  comrades 
came  back  from  their  soldierings  to  their  humble 
homes,  from  which  Lincoln  was  soon  to  start  on 


100  ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

Chap.  V.  the  way  marked  out  for  him  by  Providence,  with 
strides  which  no  comrade,  with  whatever  good- 
will, might  hope  to  follow. 

He  never  took  his  campaigning  seriously.  The 
politician's  habit  of  glorifying  the  petty  incidents 
of  a  candidate's  life  always  seemed  absurd  to  him, 
and  in  his  speech,  made  in  1848,  ridiculing  the 
effort  on  the  part  of  General  Cass's  friends  to  draw 
some  political  advantage  from  that  gentleman's 
respectable  but  obscure  services  on  the  frontier  in 
the  war  with  Great  Britain,  he  estopped  any 
future  eulogist  from  painting  his  own  military 
achievements  in  too  lively  colors.  "  Did  you 
know,  Mr.  Speaker,"  he  said,  "  I  am  a  military 
hero  ?  In  the  days  of  the  Black  Hawk  war  I 
fought,  bled,  and  came  away.  I  was  not  at  Still- 
man's  defeat,  but  I  was  about  as  near  it  as  General 
Cass  was  to  Hull's  surrender ;  and,  like  him,  I  saw 
the  place  very  soon  afterwards.  It  is  quite  certain 
I  did  not  break  my  sword,  for  I  had  none  to  break, 
but  I  bent  my  musket  pretty  badly  on  one  occasion. 
If  General  Cass  went  in  advance  of  me  picking 
whortleberries,  I  guess  I  surpassed  him  in  charges 
on  the  wild  onions.  If  he  saw  any  live  fighting  In- 
dians, it  was  more  than  I  did,  but  I  had  a  good  many 
bloody  struggles  with  the  mosquitoes ;  and  although 
I  never  fainted  from  loss  of  blood,  I  can  truly  say  I 
was  often  very  hungry.  If  ever  I  should  conclude 
to  doff  whatever  our  Democratic  friends  may  sup- 
pose there  is  of  black-cockade  Federalism  about  me, 
and  thereupon  they  shall  take  me  up  as  their  can- 
didate for  the  Presidency,  I  protest  that  they  shall 
not  make  fun  of  me,  as  they  have  of  General  Cass, 
by  attempting  to  write  me  into  a  military  hero." 


CHAPTER    VI 


SURVEYOR    AND    REPRESENTATIVE 


THE  discharged  volunteer  arrived  in  New  chap.vi. 
Salem  only  ten  days  before  the  August  elec-  1832. 
tion,  in  which  he  had  a  deep  personal  interest. 
Before  starting  for  the  wars  he  had  announced 
himself,  according  to  the  custom  of  the  time,  by  a 
handbill  circular,  as  a  candidate  for  the  Legislature 
from  Sangamon  County/  He  had  done  this  in 
accordance  with  his  own  natural  bent  for  public 
life  and  desire  for  usefulness  and  distinction,  and 
not  without  strong  encouragement  from  friends 
whose  opinion  he  valued.  He  had  even  then  con- 
siderable experience  in  speaking  and  thinking  on 
his  feet.  He  had  begun  his  practice  in  that 
direction  before  leaving  Indiana,  and  continued  it 
everywhere  he  had  gone.  Mr.  William  Butler  tells 
us  that  on  one  occasion,  when  Lincoln  was  a  farm- 
hand at  Island  Grove,  the  famous  circuit-rider, 
Peter  Cartwright,  came  by,  electioneering  for  the 
Legislature,  and  Lincoln  at  once  engaged  in  a 
discussion  with  him  in  the  cornfield,  in  which  the 

We  are  aware  that  all  former  circular  is  dated  March  9,  1832, 

biographers     have     stated    that  and    the     "  San  game     Journal" 

Lincoln's   candidacy  for  the  Leg-  mentions  his  name    among    the 

islature  was    subsequent   to  his  candidatesin  July,  and  apologizes 

return  from  the  war,  and  a  con-  for  having  accidentally  omitted 

sequence  of  his  service.    But  his  it  in  May. 

101 


102  ABKAHAM    LINCOLN 

Chap.  vt.  great  Methodist  was  equally  astonished  at  the  close 
reasoning  and  the  uncouth  figure  of  Mr.  Brown's 
extraordinary  hired  man.  At  another  time,  after 
one  Posey,  a  politician  in  search  of  office,  had 
made  a  speech  in  Macon,  John  Hanks,  whose 
admiration  of  his  cousin's  oratory  was  unbounded, 
said  that  "  Abe  couid  beat  it."  He  turned  a  keg 
on  end,  and  the  tall  boy  mounted  it  and  made  his 
speech.  "The  subject  was  the  navigation  of  the 
Sangamon,  and  Abe  beat  him  to  death,"  says  the 
loyal  Hanks.  So  it  was  not  with  the  tremor  of 
a  complete  novice  that  the  young  man  took  the 
stump  during  the  few  days  left  him  between  his 
return  and  the  election. 

He  ran  as  a  Whig.  As  this  has  been  denied  on 
authority  which  is  generally  trustworthy,  it  is 
well  enough  to  insist  upon  the  fact,  "We  have  a 
memorandum  in  Mr.  Lincoln's  own  handwriting  in 
which  he  says  he  ran  as  "  an  avowed  Clay  man." 
In  one  of  the  few  speeches  of  his,  which,  made  at 
this  time,  have  been  remembered  and  reported,  he 
said  :  "I  am  in  favor  of  a  national  bank ;  I  am  in 
favor  of  the  internal  improvement  system,  and  of 
a  high  protective  tariff.  These  are  my  sentiments 
and  political  principles."  Nothing  could  be  more 
unqualified  or  outspoken  than  this  announcement 
of  his  adhesion  to  what  was  then  and  for  years 
afterwards  called  "the  American  System"  of 
Henry  Clay.  Other  testimony  is  not  wanting  to 
the  same  effect.  Both  Major  Stuart  and  Judge 
Logan  ^  say  that  Lincoln  ran  in  1832  as  a  Whig, 
and  that  his  speeches  were  unevasively  in  defense  of 

1  The  Democrats  of  New  Salem  was  the  general  understanding 
worked  for  Lincoln  out  of  their  of  the  matter  here  at  the  time, 
personal  regard  for  him.     That    In  this  he  made  no  concession  of 


SURVEYOR  AND  REPRESENTATIVE  103 

the  principles  of  that  party.  Without  discussing  chap.vi. 
the  merits  of  the  party  or  its  purposes,  we  may 
insist  that  his  adopting  them  thus  openly  at  the 
outset  of  his  career  was  an  extremely  characteristic 
act,  and  marks  thus  early  the  scrupulous  con- 
scientiousness which  shaped  every  action  of  his 
life.  The  State  of  Illinois  was  by  a  large  majority 
Democratic,  hopelessly  attached  to  the  person  and 
policy  of  Jackson.  Nowhere  had  that  despotic 
leader  more  violent  and  unscrupulous  partisans 
than  there.  They  were  proud  of  their  very 
servility,  and  preferred  the  name  of  "whole-hog 
Jackson  men  "  to  that  of  Democrats.  The  Whigs 
embraced  in  their  scanty  ranks  the  leading  men 
of  the  State,  those  who  have  since  been  most 
distinguished  in  its  history,  such  as  S.  T.  Logan, 
Stuart,  Browning,  Dubois,  Hardin,  Breese,  and 
many  others.  But  they  were  utterly  unable  to  do 
anything  except  by  dividing  the  Jackson  men, 
whose  very  numbers  made  their  party  unwieldy, 
and  by  throwing  their  votes  with  the  more  decent 
and  conservative  portion  of  them.  In  this  way,  in 
the  late  election,  they  had  secured  the  success  of 
Governor  Reynolds  —  the  Old  Ranger — against 
Governor  Kinney,  who  represented  the  vehement 
and  proscriptive  spirit  which  Jackson  had  just 
breathed  into  the  party.  He  had  visited  the 
General  in  Washington,  and  had  come  back  giving 
out  threatenings  and  slaughter  against  the  Whigs 
in  the  true  Tennessee  style,  declaring  that  "all 
Whigs  should  be  whipped  out  of  office  like  dogs 

principle  whatever.    He  was  as  popular  —  because  he  was   Lin- 
stiff  as   a  man   could  be  in  his  coin. 

Whig  doctrines.     They  did  this  Stephen  T.  Logan. 

for  him  simply  because  he  was        July  6,  1875. 


104  ABKAHAM    LINCOLN 

Chap.  VI.  out  of  a  meat-housG  " ;  the  force  of  south-western 
simile  could  no  further  go.  But  the  great 
popularity  of  Eeynolds  and  the  adroit  manage- 
ment of  the  Whigs  carried  him  through  success- 
fully. A  single  fact  will  show  on  which  side  the 
people  who  could  read  were  enlisted.  The  "  whole- 
hog"  party  had  one  newspaper,  the  opposition 
five.  Of  coui'se  it  would  have  been  impossible  for 
Eeynolds  to  poll  a  respectable  vote  if  his  loyalty 
Reynolds,  to  Jacksou  had  been  seriously  doubted.  As  it  was, 
TtoST'"  ^6  l^st  many  votes  through  a  report  that  he  had 
p-291-  been  guilty  of  saying  that  "he  was  as  strong  for 
Jackson  as  any  reasonable  man  should  be."  The 
Grovernor  himself,  in  his  naive  account  of  the 
canvass,  acknowledges  the  damaging  nature  of  this 
accusation,  and  comforts  himself  with  quoting  an 
indiscretion  of  Kinney's,  who  opposed  a  projected 
canal  on  the  ground  that  "it  would  flood  the 
country  with  Yankees." 

It  showed  some  moral  coui'age,  and  certainly  an 
absence  of  the  shuffling  politician's  fair-weather 
policy,  that  Lincoln,  in  his  obscm^e  and  penniless 
youth,  at  the  very  beginning  of  his  career,  when 
he  was  not  embarrassed  by  antecedents  or  family 
connections,  and  when,  in  fact,  what  little  social 
influence  he  knew  would  have  led  him  the  other 
way,  chose  to  oppose  a  furiously  intolerant 
majority,  and  to  take  his  stand  with  the  party 
which  was  doomed  to  long-continued  defeat  in 
Illinois.  The  motives  which  led  him  to  take  this 
decisive  course  are  not  diflicult  to  imagine.  The 
better  sort  of  people  in  Sangamon  County  were 
Whigs,  though  the  majority  were  Democrats,  and 
he  preferred  through  life  the  better  sort  to  the 


SURVEYOR  AND  REPRESENTATIVE  105 

majority.  The  papers  he  read  were  the  Louisville  chap.  vi. 
"  Journal "  and  the  "  Sangamo  Journal,"  both 
Whig.  Reading  the  speeches  and  debates  of  the 
day,  he  sided  with  Webster  against  Calhoun,  and 
with  Clay  against  anybody.  Though  his  notions 
of  politics,  like  those  of  any  ill-educated  young 
man  of  twenty-two,  must  have  been  rather  crude, 
and  not  at  all  sufficient  to  live  and  to  die  by,  he 
had  adopted  them  honestly  and  sincerely,  with  no 
selfish  regard  to  his  own  interests ;  and  though  he 
ardently  desired  success,  he  never  abated  one  jot 
or  tittle  of  his  convictions  for  any  possible  personal 
gain,  then  or  thereafter. 

In  the  circular  in  which  he  announced  his  candi- 
dacy he  made  no  reference  to  national  politics,  but 
confined  himself  mainly  to  a  discussion  of  the 
practicability  of  improving  the  navigation  of  the 
Sangamon,  the  favorite  hobby  of  the  place  and 
time.  He  had  no  monopoly  of  this  "issue."  It 
formed  the  burden  of  nearly  every  candidate's 
appeal  to  the  people  in  that  year.  The  excitement 
occasioned  by  the  trip  of  the  Talisman  had  not  yet 
died  away,  although  the  little  steamer  was  now 
dust  and  ashes,  and  her  bold  commander  had  left 
the  State  to  avoid  an  awkward  meeting  with  the 
sheriff.  The  hope  of  seeing  Springfield  an  emporium 
of  commerce  was  stiU  lively  among  the  citizens  of 
Sangamon  County,  and  in  no  one  of  the  handbills 
of  the  political  aspirants  of  the  season  was  that 
hope  more  judiciously  encouraged  than  in  the 
one  signed  by  Abraham  Lincoln.  It  was  a  well- 
written  circular,  remarkable  for  its  soberness  and 
reserve  when  we  consider  the  age  and  the  limited 
advantages  of  the  writer.    It  concluded  in  these 


106  ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

Chap.  VI.  words :  " Upon  the  subjects  of  which  I  have  treated, 
I  have  spoken  as  I  have  thought.  I  may  be  wrong 
in  regard  to  any  or  all  of  them ;  but  holding  it  a 
sound  maxim  that  it  is  better  only  sometimes  to  be 
right  than  at  all  times  wrong,  so  soon  as  I  discover 
my  opinions  to  be  erroneous  I  shall  be  ready  to 
renounce  them.  .  .  .  Every  man  is  said  to  have 
his  peculiar  ambition.  Whether  it  be  true  or  not, 
I  can  say  for  one,  that  I  have  no  other  so  great  as 
that  of  being  truly  esteemed  of  my  fellow-men,  by 
rendering  myself  worthy  of  their  esteem.  How 
far  I  shall  succeed  in  gratifying  this  ambition  is 
yet  to  be  developed.  I  am  young,  and  unknown  to 
many  of  you.  I  was  born  and  have  ever  remained 
in  the  most  humble  walks  of  life.  I  have  no 
wealthy  or  powerful  relations  or  friends  to  recom- 
mend me.  My  case  is  thrown  exclusively  upon 
the  independent  voters  of  the  county;  and,  if 
elected,  they  will  have  conferred  a  favor  upon  me, 
for  which  I  shall  be  unremitting  in  my  labors  to 
compensate.  But  if  the  good  people  in  their  wis- 
dom shall  see  fit  to  keep  me  in  the  background,  I 
have  been  too  familiar  with  disappointments  to  be 
very  much  chagrined." 

This  is  almost  precisely  the  style  of  his  later 
years.  The  errors  of  grammar  and  construction 
which  spring  invariably  from  an  effort  to  avoid 
redundancy  of  expression  remained  with  him 
through  life.  He  seemed  to  grudge  the  space 
required  for  necessary  parts  of  speech.  But  his 
language  was  at  twenty-two,  as  it  was  thirty  years 
later,  the  simple  and  manly  attire  of  his  thought, 
with  little  attempt  at  ornament  and  none  at  dis- 
guise.   There  was  an  intermediate  time  when  he 


SUKVEYOR  AND  REPRESENTATIVE  107 

sinned  in  the  direction  of  fine  writing;  but  this    chap.vi. 
ebullition  soon  passed  away,  and  left  that  marvel- 
ously  strong  and  transparent  style  in  which  his 
two  inaugurals  were  written. 

Of  course,  in  the  ten  days  left  him  after  his 
return  from  the  field,  a  canvass  of  the  county, 
which  was  then  —  before  its  division  —  several 
thousand  square  miles  in  extent,  was  out  of  the 
question.  He  made  a  few  speeches  in  the  neigh- 
borhood of  New  Salem,  and  at  least  one  in  Spring- 
field. He  was  wholly  unknown  there  except  by 
his  few  comrades  in  arms.  We  find  him  mentioned 
in  the  county  paper  only  once  during  the  summer, 
in  an  editorial  note  adding  the  name  of  Captain 
Lincoln  to  those  candidates  for  the  Legislature 
who  were  periling  their  lives  on  the  frontier  and 
had  left  their  reputations  in  charge  of  their  gener- 
ous fellow-citizens  at  home.  On  the  occasion  of 
his  speaking  at  Springfield,  most  of  the  candidates 
had  come  together  to  address  a  meeting  there  to 
give  their  electors  some  idea  of  their  quality. 
These  were  severe  ordeals  for  the  rash  aspirants 
for  popular  favor.  Besides  those  citizens  who 
came  to  listen  and  judge,  there  were  many  whose 
only  object  was  the  free  whisky  provided  for  the 
occasion,  and  who,  after  potations  pottle-deep, 
became  not  only  highly  unparliamentary  but  even 
dangerous  to  life  and  limb.  This  wild  chivalry  of 
Lick  Creek  was,  however,  less  redoubtable  to  Lin- 
coln than  it  might  be  to  an  urban  statesman  unac- 
quainted with  the  frolic  brutality  of  Clary's  Orove. 
Their  gambols  never  caused  him  to  lose  his  self- 
possession.  It  is  related  that  once,  while  he  was 
speaking,  he  saw  a  ruffian  attack  a  friend  of  his  in 


108  ABKAHAM    LINCOLN 

Chap.  VI.  the  cro wd,  and  the  rencontre  not  resulting  according 
to  the  orator's  sympathies,  he  descended  from  the 
stand,  seized  the  objectionable  fighting  man  by  the 
neck,  "threw  him  some  ten  feet,"  then  calmly 
mounted  to  his  place  and  finished  his  speech,  the 
course  of  his  logic  undisturbed  by  this  athletic 
parenthesis.  Judge  Logan  saw  Lincoln  for  the 
first  time  on  the  day  when  he  came  up  to 
Springfield  on  his  canvass  this  summer.  He  thus 
speaks  of  his  future  partner :  "  He  was  a  very  tall, 
gawky,  and  rough-looking  fellow  then  ;  his  panta- 
loons did  n't  meet  his  shoes  by  six  inches.  But 
after  he  began  speaking  1  became  very  much  inter- 
ested in  him.  He  made  a  very  sensible  speech. 
His  manner  was  very  much  the  same  as  in  after  life; 
that  is,  the  same  peculiar  characteristics  were 
apparent  then,  though  of  course  in  after  years  he 
evinced  more  knowledge  and  experience.  But  he 
had  then  the  same  novelty  and  the  same  peculiarity 
in  presenting  his  ideas.  He  had  the  same  indi- 
viduality that  he  kept  through  all  his  life." 

There  were  two  or  three  men  at  the  meeting 
whose  good  opinion  was  worth  more  than  all  the 
votes  of  Lick  Creek  to  one  beginning  life :  Stephen 
T.  Logan,  a  j^oung  lawyer  who  had  recently  come 
from  Kentucky  with  the  best  equipment  for  a  nisi 
prius  practitioner  ever  brought  into  the  State; 
Major  Stuart,  whom  we  have  met  in  the  Black 
Hawk  war,  once  commanding  a  battalion  and  then 
marching  as  a  private  ;  and  William  Butler,  after- 
wards prominent  in  State  politics,  at  that  time  a 
young  man  of  the  purest  Western  breed  in  body 
and  character,  clear-headed  and  courageous,  and 
ready  for  any  emergency  where  a  friend  was  to  be 


SUEVEYOE  AND  EEPKESENTATIVE  109 

defended  or  an  enemy  punished.    We  do  not  know    chap.vi. 
whether  Lincoln  gained  any  votes  that  day,  but 
he  gained  what  was  far  more  valuable,  the  active 
friendship   of  these  able  and  honorable  men,  all 
Whigs  and  all  Kentuckians  like  himself. 

The  acquaintances  he  made  in  his  canvass,  the 
practice  he  gained  in  speaking,  and  the  added 
confidence  which  this  experience  of  measuring  his 
abilities  with  those  of  others  gave,  were  all  the 
advantages  which  Lincoln  derived  from  this 
attempt.  He  was  defeated,  for  the  only  time  in 
his  life,  in  a  contest  before  the  people.  The  for- 
tunate candidates  were  E.  D.  Taylor,  J.  T.  Stuart, 
Achilles  Morris,  and  Peter  Cartwright,  the  first  of 
whom  received  1127  votes  and  the  last  815.  Lin- 
coln's position  among  the  eight  defeated  candidates 
was  a  very  respectable  one.  He  had  657  votes,  and 
there  were  five  who  fared  worse,  among  them  his 
old  adversary  Kirkpatrick.  What  must  have  been 
especially  gratifying  to  him  was  the  fact  that  he 
received  the  almost  unanimous  vote  of  his  own 
neighborhood,  the  precinct  of  New  Salem,  277 
votes  against  3,  a  result  which  showed  more 
strongly  than  any  words  could  do  the  extent  of  "Sangamo 
the  attachment  and  the  confidence  which  his  genial  August  I'l, 
and  upright  character  had  inspired  among  those 
who  knew  him  best. 

Having  been,  even  in  so  slight  a  degree,  a  soldier 
and  a  politician,  he  was  unfitted  for  a  day  laborer; 
but  being  entirely  without  means  of  subsistence,  he 
was  forced  to  look  about  for  some  suitable  occupa- 
tion. We  know  he  thought  seriously  at  this  time 
of  learning  the  trade  of  a  blacksmith,  and  using  in 
that  honest  way  the  sinew  and  brawn  which  nature 


110  ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

Chap.  VI.  had  given  him.  But  an  opening  for  another  kind 
of  business  occurred,  which  prevented  his  entering 
upon  any  merely  mechanical  occupation.  Two  of 
his  most  intimate  friends  were  the  brothers  Hern- 
don,  called,  according  to  the  fashion  of  the  time, 
which  held  it  unfriendly  to  give  a  man  his  proper 
name,  and  arrogant  for  him  to  claim  it,  "Row "and 
"Jim."  They  kept  one  of  those  grocery  stores  in 
which  everything  salable  on  the  frontier  was  sold, 
and  which  seem  to  have  changed  their  occupants 
as  rapidly  as  sentry-boxes.  "  Jim  "  sold  his  share 
to  an  idle  and  dissolute  man  named  Berry,  and 
"  Row  "  soon  transferred  his  interest  to  Lincoln. 
It  was  easy  enough  to  buy,  as  nothing  was  ever 
given  in  payment  but  a  promissory  note.  A  short 
time  afterwards,  one  Reuben  Radford,  who  kept 
another  shop  of  the  same  kind,  happened  one  even- 
ing to  attract  the  dangerous  attention  of  the  Clary's 
Grove  boys,  who,  with  their  usual  prompt  and 
practical  facetiousness,  without  a  touch  of  malice 
in  it,  broke  his  windows  and  wrecked  his  store. 
The  next  morning,  while  Radford  was  ruefully 
contemplating  the  ruin,  and  doubtless  concluding 
that  he  had  had  enough  of  a  country  where  the 
local  idea  of  neighborly  humor  found  such  eccen- 
tric expression,  he  hailed  a  passer-by  named 
Greene,  and  challenged  him  to  buy  his  establish- 
ment for  four  hundred  dollars.  This  sort  of  trade 
was  always  irresistible  to  these  Western  specu- 
lators, and  Greene  at  once  gave  his  note  for  the 
amount.  It  next  occurred  to  him  to  try  to  find  out 
what  the  property  was  worth,  and  doubting  his 
own  skill,  he  engaged  Lincoln  to  make  an  invoice 
of  it.     The  young  merchant,  whose  appetite  for 


SURVEYOE  AND  REPRESENTATIVE  111 

speculation  had  just  been  whetted  by  his  own  chap.vi. 
investment,  undertook  the  task,  and,  finding  the 
stock  of  goods  rather  tempting,  offered  Greene 
$250  for  his  bargain,  which  was  at  once  accepted. 
Not  a  cent  of  money  changed  hands  in  all  these 
transactions.  By  virtue  of  half  a  dozen  signatures, 
Berry  and  Lincoln  became  proprietors  of  the  only 
mercantile  establishment  in  the  village,  and  the 
apparent  wealth  of  the  community  was  increased 
by  a  liberal  distribution  of  their  notes  among  the 
Herndons,  Radford,  Greene,  and  a  Mr.  Rutledge, 
whose  business  they  had  also  bought. 

Fortunately  for  Lincoln  and  for  the  world,  the 
enterprise  was  not  successful.  It  was  entered  into 
without  sufficient  reflection,  and  from  the  very 
nature  of  things  was  destined  to  fail.  To  Berry 
the  business  was  merely  the  refuge  of  idleness. 
He  spent  his  time  in  gossip  and  drank  up  his  share 
of  the  profits,  and  it  is  probable  that  Lincoln  was  far 
more  interested  in  politics  and  general  reading 
than  in  the  petty  traffic  of  his  shop.  In  the  spring 
of  the  next  year,  finding  that  their  merchandise 
was  gaining  them  little  or  nothing,  they  concluded 
to  keep  a  tavern  in  addition  to  therr  other  business, 
and  the  records  of  the  County  Court  of  Sangamon 
County  show  that  Berry  took  out  a  license  for  that 
purpose  on  the  6th  of  March,  1833.^  But  it  was 
even  then  too  late  for  any  expedients  to  save  the 
moribund  partnership.  The  tavern  was  never 
opened,  for  about  this  time   Lincoln   and  Berry 

1  The  following  is  an   extract  tinue   twelve    months  from   this 

trom  the  court  record:  "March  date,    and    that    they    pay    one 

(^   1833.      Ordered  that  William  dollar  in  addition  to  six  dollars 

H'.  Berry,  in  the  name  of  Berry  heretofore  prepaid  as  per  Treas- 

and  Lincoln,  have  license  to  keep  urer's   receipt,  and  that  they  be 

a  tavern  in  New  Salem,  to  con-  allowed  the  following  rates,  viz. : 


112  ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

Chap.  VI.  were  challenged  to  sell  out  to  a  pair  of  vagrant 
brothers  named  Trent,  who,  as  they  had  no  idea  of 
paying,  were  willing  to  give  their  notes  to  any 
amount.  They  soon  ran  away,  and  Berry  expired, 
extinguished  in  rum.  Lincoln  was  thus  left  loaded 
with  debts,  and  with  no  assets  except  worthless 
notes  of  BeiTy  and  the  Trents.  It  is  gi-eatly  to  his 
credit  that  he  never  thought  of  doing  by  others 
as  others  had  done  by  him.  The  morality  of  the 
frontier  was  deplorably  loose  in  such  matters,  and 
most  of  these  people  would  have  concluded  that 
the  failure  of  the  business  expunged  its  liabilities. 
But  Lincoln  made  no  effort  even  to  compromise  the 
claims  against  him.  He  promised  to  pay  when  he 
could,  and  it  took  the  labor  of  years  to  do  it ;  but 
he  paid  at  last  every  farthing  of  the  debt,  which 
seemed  to  him  and  his  friends  so  large  that  it  was 
called  among  them  "  the  national  debt." 

He  had  already  begun  to  read  elementary  books 
of  law,  borrowed  from  Major  Stuart  and  other 
kindly  acquaintances.  Indeed,  it  is  quite  possible 
that  Berry  and  Lincoln  might  have  succeeded 
better  in  business  if  the  junior  member  of  the  firm 
had  not  spent  so  much  of  his  time  reading  Black- 
stone  and  Chitty  in  the  shade  of  a  great  oak  just 
outside  the  door,  while  the  senior  quietly  fuddled 
himseK  within.  Eye-witnesses  still  speak  of  the 
grotesque  youth,  habited  in  homespun  tow,  lying 
on  his  back  with  his  feet  on  the  trunk  of  the  tree, 
and  poring  over  his  book  by  the  hour,  "gi'inding 

French    brandy,    per    pint,    25;  12%;    Horse     for     night,     25; 

Peach,    18?^;    Apple,    12;  Hoi-  Single    feed,    12}^;     Breakfast, 

land  gin,  18?^;  Domestic,  12J^ ;  dinner,    or    supper,    for     stage 

Wine,  25  ;  Rum,  18?^  ;   Whisky,  passengers,  31%. 
12k;    Breakfast,     dinner,     or        "Who  gave  bond  as  requir^-d. 

supper,  25  ;  Lodging  for  night,  by  law." 


JUDGE    STEPHEN    T.   LOGAN. 


THE  LP"ftR1f 
OF  THE 


SUKVEYOR  AND  EEPRESENTATIVE  113 

around  with  the  shade,"  as  it  shifted  from  north  to  chap.vi. 
east.  After  his  store,  to  use  his  own  expression, 
had  "  winked  out,"  he  applied  himself  with  more 
continuous  energy  to  his  reading,  doing  merely 
what  odd  jobs  came  to  his  hand  to  pay  his  current 
expenses,  which  were  of  course  very  slight.  He 
sometimes  helped  his  friend  Ellis  in  his  store; 
sometimes  went  into  the  field  and  renewed  his 
exploits  as  a  farm-hand,  which  had  gained  him  a 
traditional  fame  in  Indiana;  sometimes  employed 
his  clerkly  hand  in  straightening  up  a  neglected 
ledger.  It  is  probable  that  he  worked  for  his  board 
oftener  than  for  any  other  compensation,  and  his 
hearty  friendliness  and  vivacity,  as  well  as  his 
industry  in  the  field,  made  him  a  welcome  guest 
in  any  farm-house  in  the  county.  His  strong  arm 
was  always  at  the  disposal  of  the  poor  and  needy ; 
it  is  said  of  him,  with  a  graphic  variation  of  a  well- 
known  text,  "that  he  visited  the  fatherless  and 
the  widow  and  chopped  their  wood." 

In  the  spring  of  this  year,  1833,  he  was  appointed  1833. 
Postmaster  of  New  Salem,  and  held  the  office  for 
three  years.  Its  emoluments  were  slender  and  its 
duties  light,  but  there  was  in  all  probability  no 
citizen  of  the  village  who  could  have  made  so 
much  of  it  as  he.  The  mails  were  so  scanty  that 
he  was  said  to  carry  them  in  his  hat,  and  he  is 
also  reported  to  have  read  every  newspaper  that 
arrived ;  it  is  altogether  likely  that  this  formed  the 
leading  inducement  to  his  taking  the  office.  His 
incumbency  lasted  until  New  Salem  ceased  to  be 
populous  enough  for  a  post-station  and  the  mail 
went  by  to  Petersburg.  Dr.  J.  G.  Holland  relates  a 
sequel  to  this  official  experience  which  illustrates 
Vol.  L— 8 


114  ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

Chap.  VI.  the  quaiiit  honesty  of  the  man.  Several  years 
later,  when  he  was  a  practicing  lawyer,  an  agent  of 
the  Post-office  Department  called  upon  him,  and 
asked  for  a  balance  due  from  the  New  Salem  office, 
some  seventeen  dollars.  Lincoln  rose,  and  open- 
ing a  little  trunk  which  lay  in  a  corner  of  the  room, 
took  from  it  a  cotton  rag  in  which  was  tied  up 
the  exact  sum  required.  "  I  never  use  any  man's 
money  but  my  own,"  he  quietly  remarked.  When 
we  consider  the  pinching  poverty  in  which  these 
years  had  been  passed,  we  may  appreciate  the  self- 


A.    LINCOLN'S    SURVEYING    INSTRUMENTS   AND    SADDLE-BAG. 
IN    THE    POSSESSION    OF    THE    LINCOLN    MONUMENT   COLLECTION. 

denial  which  had  kept  him  from  making  even  a 
temporary  use  of  this  little  sum  of  government 
money. 

John  Calhoun,  the  Surveyor  of  Sangamon 
County,  was  at  this  time  overburdened  with  work. 
The  principal  local  industry  was  speculation  in 
land.  Every  settler  of  course  wanted  his  farm 
surveyed  and  marked  out  for  him,  and  every 
community  had  its  syndicate  of  leading  citizens 
who  cherished  a  scheme  of  laying  out  a  city  some- 
where. In  many  cases  the  city  was  plotted,  the 
sites  of  the  principal  buildings,  including  a  court- 
house and  a  university,  were  determined,  and  a 
sonorous  name  was  selected  out  of  Plutarch,  before 


SURVEYOR  AND  REPRESENTATIVE  115 

its  location  was  even  considered.  For  this  latter  chap.vi. 
office  the  intervention  of  an  official  surveyor  was 
necessary,  and  therefore  Mr.  Calhoun  had  more 
business  than  he  could  attend  to  without  assist- 
ance. Looking  about  for  a  young  man  of  good 
character,  intelligent  enough  to  learn  surveying 
at  short  notice,  his  attention  was  soon  attracted 
to  Lincoln.  He  offered  young  Abraham  a  book 
containing  the  elements  of  the  art,  and  told  him 
when  he  had  mastered  it  he  should  have  employ- 
ment. The  offer  was  a  flattering  one,  and  Lincoln, 
with  that  steady  self-reliance  of  his,  accepted  it, 
and  armed  with  his  book  went  out  to  the  school- 
master's (Menton  Graham's),  and  in  six  weeks'  close 
application  made  himself  a  surveyor.^ 

It  will  be  remembered  that  Washington  in  his 
youth  adopted  the  same  profession,  but  there 
were  few  points  of  similarity  in  the  lives  of  the 
two  great  Presidents,  in  youth  or  later  man- 
hood. The  Virginian  had  every  social  advantage 
in  his  favor,  and  was  by  nature  a  man  of  more 

1  There  has  been  some  discus-  from  town,  any  persons  wishing 

sion  as  to  whether  Lincoln  served  their  land  surveyed  will  do  well 

as    deputy    under     Calhoun     or  to   call  at  the   Recorder's  office 

Neale.      The    truth    is    that    he  and  enter  his  or  their  names  in  a 

served  under  both  of  them.     Cal-  book  left  for  that  purpose,  stat- 

houn    was    surveyor    in     1833,  ing  township  and  range  in  which 

when  Lincoln   first  learned  the  they  respectively  live,  and  their 

business.     Neale  was  elected  in  business   shall   be   promptly  at- 

1835,  and  immediately  appointed  tended  to. 
Lincoln  and  Calhoun  as  his  dep-  T.  M.  Neale." 

uties.    The  "  Sangamo  Journal"  .          x-  i     i,      n  i       i    n      a 

-c!     i-io-ior.^          x-       X,  An  article  by  Colonel   G.    A. 

of  Sept.  12,  1835,  contains  the  pj^^.^^    printed  April  21    1881 

following  official  advertisement:  in  the  Chicago  "Inter-Ocean,"  de- 

"  Surveyor's  Notice. — I  have  scribes  an  interview  held  in  that 

appointed     John     B.      Watson,  month  with  W.G.Green,  of  Menard 

Abram  Lincoln,    and  John  Cal-  County,  in  which  this  matter  is 

houn  deputy  surveyors  for  San-  referred  to.     But  Mr.  Green  relies 

gamon  County.     In  my  absence  more    on  the    document   in  his 


116 


SUEVEYOR    AND    KEPEESENTATIVE 


117 


thrift  and  greater  sagacity  in  money  matters.  He 
used  the  knowledge  gained  in  the  practice  of  his 
profession  so  wisely  that  he  became  rather  early  in 
life  a  large  land-holder,  and  continually  increased 
his  possessions  until  his  death.  Lincoln,  with 
almost  unbounded  opportunities  for  the  selection 
and  purchase  of  valuable  tracts,  made  no  use 
whatever  of  them.  He  employed  his  skill  and 
knowledge  merely  as  a  bread-winner,  and  made  so 
little  provision  for  the  future  that  when  Mr.  Van 
Bergen,  who  had  purchased  the  Eadf  ord  note,  sued 
and  got  judgment  on  it,  his  horse  and  his  survey- 
ing instruments  were  taken  to  pay  the  debt,  and 
only  by  the  generous  intervention  of  a  friend  was 
he  able  to  redeem  these  invaluable  means  of  living. 
He  was,  nevertheless,  an  excellent  surveyor.  His 
portion  of  the  public  work  executed  under  the 
directions  of  Mr.  Calhoun  and  his  successor,  T.  M. 
Neale,  was  well  performed,  and  he  soon  found  his 
time  pretty  well  employed  with  private  business 
which  came  to  him  from  Sangamon  and  the  adjoin- 


Chap.  VI. 


possession  than  on  his  recollec- 
tion of  what  took  place  in  1833. 
"'Where  did  Lincoln  learn  his 
surveying  ? '  I  asked.  *  Took  it  up 
himself,'  replied  Mr.  Green,  '  as 
he  did  a  hundred  things,  and 
mastered  it  too.  When  he  acted 
as  surveyor  here  he  was  deputy  of 
T.  M.  Neale,  and  not  of  Calhoun, 
as  has  often  been  said.  There 
was  a  dispute  about  this,  and 
many  sketches  of  his  life  gave 
Calhoun  (Candle-box  Calhoun, 
as  he  was  afterwards  known  dur- 
ing the  Kansas  troubles  and 
election  frauds)  as  the  surveyor, 
but  it  was  Neale.'  Mr.  Green 
turned  to  his  desk  and  drew  out 
an  old  certificate,  in  the  hand- 


writing of  Lincoln,  giving  the 
boundaries  of  certain  lands,  and 
signed,  '  T.  M.  Neale,  Surveyor, 
by  A.  Lincoln,  Deputy,'  thus 
settling  the  question.  Mr.  Green 
was  a  Democrat,  and  has  leaned 
towards  that  party  all  his  life, 
but  what  he  thought  and  thinks 
of  Lincoln  can  be  seen  by  an  in- 
dorsement on  the  back  of  the 
certificate  named,  which  is  as 
follows : " 


Preserve  this,  as  it  is  the 
noblest  of  God's  creation  — A. 
Lincoln,  the  2d  preserver  of 
hjs  country.  May  3,  1865.— 
Penned  by  W.  G.  Green,  who 
taught  Lincoln  the  English 
grammar  in  1831. 


¥ 


118 


SURVEYOR    AND    REPRESENTATIVE 


119 


ing  counties.  Early  in  the  year  1834  we  find  him 
appointed  one  of  three  "  viewers  "  to  locate  a  road 
from  Salt  Creek  to  the  county  line  in  the  direction 
of  Jacksonville.  The  board  seems  to  have  con- 
sisted mainly  of  its  chairman,  as  Lincoln  made  the 
deposit  of  money  required  by  law,  surveyed  the 
route,  plotted  the  road,  and  wrote  the  report.^ 

Though  it  is  evident  that  the  post-office  and  the 
surveyor's  compass  were  not  making  a  rich  man  of 
him,  they  were  sufficient  to  enable  him  to  live 
decently,  and  during  the  year  he  greatly  increased 
his  acquaintance  and  his  influence  in  the  county. 
The  one  followed  the  other  naturally  ;  every  ac- 
quaintance he  made  became  his  friend,  and  even 
before  the  end  of  his  unsuccessful  canvass  in  1832 


Chap.  VI 

1834. 


1  As  this  is  probably  the  earli- 
est public  document  extant  writ- 
ten and  signed  by  Lincoln,  we 
give  it  in  full : 

"  March  3,  1834.  Reuben 
Harrison  presented  the  following 
petition:  We,  the  undersigned, 
respectfully  request  your  honor- 
able body  to  appoint  viewers  to 
view  and  locate  a  road  from 
Musick's  ferry  on  Salt  Creek,  via 
New  Salem,  to  the  county  line  in 
the  direction  of  Jacksonville. 

' '  And  Abram  Lincoln  deposited 
with  the  clerk  $10,  as  the  law 
directs.  Ordered,  that  Michael 
Killion,  Hugh  Armstrong,  and 
Abram  Lincoln  be  appointed  to 
view  said  road,  and  said  Lincoln 
to  act  as  surveyor. 


"To  the  County  Commission- 
ers' Court  for  the  county  of  San- 
gamon, at  its  June  term,  1834. 
We,  the  undersigned,  being  ap- 
pointed to  view  and  locate  a 
road,  beginning  at  Musick's  ferry 
on  Salt  Creek,  via  New  Salem,  to 


the  county  line  in  the  direction 
to  Jacksonville,  respectfully  re- 
port that  we  have  performed  the 
duties  of  said  view  and  location^ 
as  required  by  law,  and  that  we 
have  made  the  location  on  good 
ground,  and  believe  the  estab- 
lishment of  the  same  to  be  neces- 
sary and  proper. 

"The  inclosed  map  gives  the 
courses  and  distances  as  required 
by  law.  Michael  Killion,  Hugh 
Armstrong,  A.  Lincoln." 

(Indorsement  in  pencil,  also  in 
Lincoln's  handwriting:) 

"A.  Lincoln,  5  days  at  $3.00, 
$15.00.  John  A.  Kelsoe,  chain- 
bearer,  for  5  days  at  75  cents, 
$3.75.  Robert  Lloyd,  at  75 
cents,  $3.75.  Hugh  Armstrong, 
for  services  as  axeman,  5  days 
at  75  cents,  $3.75.  A.  Lincoln, 
for  making  plot  and  report, 
$2.50." 

(On  Map.) 

"Whole  length  of  road,  26 
miles  and  70  chains.  Scale,  2 
inches  to  the  mile." 


120  ABKAHAM    LINCOLN 

Chap.  VI.  it  had  become  evident  to  the  observant  politicians 
of  the  district  that  he  was  a  man  whom  it  would 
not  do  to  leave  out  of  their  calculations.  There 
seemed  to  be  no  limit  to  his  popularity  nor  to  his 
aptitudes,  in  the  opinion  of  his  admirers.  He  was 
continually  called  on  to  sei*ve  in  the  most  incon- 
gruous capacities.  Old  residents  say  he  was  the 
best  judge  at  a  horse-race  the  county  aif orded ;  he 
w^as  occasionally  second  in  a  duel  of  fisticuffs, 
though  he  usually  contrived  to  reconcile  the  adver- 
saries on  the  turf  before  any  damage  was  done ;  he 
was  the  arbiter  on  all  controverted  points  of  litera- 
ture, science,  or  woodcraft  among  the  disputatious 
denizens  of  Clary's  Grove,  and  his  decisions  were 
never  appealed  from.  His  native  tact  and  humor 
were  invaluable  in  his  work  as  a  peacemaker,  and 
his  enormous  physical  strength,  which  he  always 
used  with  a  magnanimity  rare  among  giants,  placed 
his  off-hand  decrees  beyond  the  reach  of  contempt- 
uous question.  He  composed  differences  among 
friends  and  equals  with  good-natured  raillery,  but 
he  was  as  rough  as  need  be  when  his  wi'ath  was 
roused  by  meanness  and  cruelty.  We  hardly  know 
whether  to  credit  some  of  the  stories,  apparently 
well-attested  by  living  witnesses,  of  his  prodigious 
muscular  powers.  He  is  said  to  have  lifted,  at 
Rutledge's  mill,  a  box  of  stones  weighing  over  half 
a  ton !  It  is  also  related  that  he  could  raise  a  bar- 
rel of  whisky  from  the  ground  and  drink  from  the 
bung  —  but  the  narrator  adds  that  he  never  swal- 
lowed the  whisky.  Whether  these  traditions  are 
strictly  true  or  not,  they  are  evidently  founded  on 
the  current  reputation  he  enjoyed  among  his  fel- 
lows for  extraordinary  strength,  and  this  was  an 


SURVEYOR  AND  REPRESENTATIVE  121 

important  element  in  his  influence.  He  was  known  chap.vi. 
to  be  capable  of  handling  almost  any  man  he  met, 
yet  he  never  sought  a  quarrel.  He  was  every- 
body's friend  and  yet  used  no  liquor  or  tobacco. 
He  was  poor  and  had  scarcely  ever  been  at  school, 
yet  he  was  the  best-informed  young  man  in  the 
village.  He  had  grown  up  on  the  frontier,  the 
utmost  fringe  of  civilization,  yet  he  was  gentle  and 
clean  of  speech,  innocent  of  blasphemy  or  scandal. 
His  good  qualities  might  have  excited  resentment 
if  displayed  by  a  well-dressed  stranger  from  an 
Eastern  State,  but  the  most  uncouth  ruffians  of 
New  Salem  took  a  sort  of  proprietary  interest  and 
pride  in  the  decency  and  the  cleverness  and  the 
learning  of  their  friend  and  comrade,  Abe  Lincoln. 
It  was  regarded,  therefore,  almost  as  a  matter  of 
course  that  Lincoln  should  be  a  candidate  for  the 
Legislature  at  the  next  election,  which  took  place 
in  August,  1834.  He  was  sure  of  the  united  sup- 
port of  the  Whigs,  and  so  many  of  the  Democrats 
also  wanted  to  vote  for  him  that  some  of  the  lead- 
ing members  of  that  party  came  to  him  and  pro- 
posed they  should  give  him  an  organized  support. 
He  was  too  loyal  a  partisan  to  accept  their  over- 
tures without  taking  counsel  from  the  Whig 
candidates.  He  laid  the  matter  before  Major 
Stuart,  who  at  once  advised  him  to  make  the  can- 
vass. It  was  a  generous  and  chivalrous  action,  for 
by  thus  encouraging  the  candidacy  of  Lincoln  he 
was  endangering  his  own  election.  But  his  success 
two  years  before,  in  the  face  of  a  vindictive  oppo- 
sition led  by  the  strongest  Jackson  men  in  the 
district,  had  made  him  somewhat  confident,  and 
he  perhaps  thought  he  was  risking  little  by  giving 


122  ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

Chap.  VI.  a  helping  hand  to  his  comrade  in  the  Spy  Battalion. 
Before  the  election  Lincoln's  popularity  developed 
itself  in  rather  a  portentous  manner,  and  it  required 
some  exertion  to  save  the  seat  of  his  generous 
friend.  At  the  close  of  the  poll,  the  four  success- 
ful candidates  held  the  following  relative  positions: 
Lincoln,  1376;  Dawson,  1370;  Carpenter,  1170;  and 
Stuart,  at  that  time  probably  the  most  prominent 
young  man  in  the  district,  and  the  one  marked  out 
by  the  public  voice  for  an  early  election  to  Con- 
gi-ess,  1164. 


CHAPTEE    VII 


LEGISLATIVE    EXPERIENCE 


THE  election  of  Mr.  Lincoln  to  the  Legislature  chap.vil 
may  be  said  to  have  closed  the  pioneer  portion 
of  his  life.  He  was  done  with  the  wild  carelessness 
of  the  woods,  with  the  jolly  rujB&anism  of  Clary's 
Grove,  with  the  petty  chaffering  of  grocery  stores, 
with  odd  jobs  for  daily  bread,  with  all  the  uncouth 
squalor  of  the  frontier  poverty.  It  was  not  that  his 
pecuniary  circumstances  were  materially  improved. 
He  was  still,  and  for  years  continued  to  be,  a  very 
poor  man,  harassed  by  debts  which  he  was  always 
working  to  pay,  and  sometimes  in  distress  for  the 
means  of  decent  subsistence.  But  from  this  time 
forward  his  associations  were  with  a  better  class  of 
men  than  he  had  ever  known  before,  and  a  new 
feeling  of  self-respect  must  naturally  have  gi'own 
up  in  his  mind  from  his  constant  intercourse  with 
them — a  feeling  which  extended  to  the  minor 
morals  of  civilized  life.  A  sophisticated  reader 
may  smile  at  the  mention  of  anything  like  social 
ethics  in  Vandalia  in  1834;  but,  compared  with 
Gentryville  and  New  Salem,  the  society  which 
assembled  in  the  winter  at  that  little  capital  was 
polished  and  elegant.  The  State  then  contained 
nearly  250,000  inhabitants,  and  the  members  of  the 

123 


124  ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

CHAP.vir.  Legislature,  elected  purely  on  personal  grounds, 
nominated  by  themselves  or  their  neighbors  with- 
out the  intervention  of  party  machinery,  were 
necessarily  the  leading  men,  in  one  way  or  another, 
in  their  several  districts.  Among  the  colleagues  of 
Lincoln  at  Vandalia  were  young  men  with  destinies 
only  less  brilliant  than  his  own.  They  were  to 
become  governors,  senators,  and  judges ;  they  were 
to  organize  the  Whig  party  of  Illinois,  and  after- 
wards the  Republican ;  they  were  to  lead  brigades 
and  divisions  in  two  great  wars.  Among  the  first 
persons  he  met  there — not  in  the  Legislature  proper, 
but  in  the  lobby,  where  he  was  trying  to  appropriate 
an  office  then  filled  by  Colonel  John  J.  Hardin — 
was  his  future  antagonist,  Stephen  A.  Douglas. 
Neither  seemed  to  have  any  presentiment  of  the 
future  greatness  of  the  other.  Douglas  thought 
little  of  the  raw  youth  from  the  Sangamon  timber, 
and  Lincoln  said  the  dwarfish  Vermonter  was  "  the 
least  man  he  had  ever  seen."  To  all  appearance, 
Vandalia  was  full  of  better  men  than  either  of 
them  —  clever  lawyers,  men  of  wit  and  standing, 
some  of  them  the  sons  of  provident  early  settlers, 
but  more  who  had  come  from  older  States  to  seek 
their  fortunes  in  these  fresh  fields. 

During  his  first  session  Lincoln  occupied  no 
especially  conspicuous  position.  He  held  his  own 
respectably  among  the  best.  One  of  his  colleagues 
tells  us  he  was  not  distinguished  by  any  external 
eccentricity;  that  he  wore,  according  to  the  custom 
of  the  time,  a  decent  suit  of  blue  jeans ;  that  he 
was  known  simply  as  a  rather  quiet  young  man, 
good-natured  and  sensible.  Before  the  session 
ended  he  had  made  the  acquaintance  of  most  of 


LEGISLATIVE    EXPEEIENCE  125 

the  members,  and  had  evidently  come  to  be  looked  chap.vii. 
upon  as  possessing  more  than  ordinary  capacity. 
His  unusual  common-sense  began  to  be  recognized. 
His  name  does  not  often  appear  in  the  records  of 
the  year.  He  introduced  a  resolution  in  favor  of 
securing  to  the  State  a  part  of  the  proceeds  of  the 
sales  of  public  lands  within  its  limits ;  he  took  part 
in  the  organization  of  the  ephemeral  "  White " 
party,  which  was  designed  to  unite  all  the  anti- 
Jackson  elements  under  the  leadership  of  Hugh  L. 
White,  of  Tennessee;  he  voted  with  the  minority 
in  favor  of  Young  against  Robinson  for  senator, 
and  with  the  majority  that  passed  the  Bank  and 
Canal  bills,  which  were  received  with  great  enthu- 
siasm throughout  Illinois,  and  which  were  only  the 
precursors  of  those  gigantic  and  ill-advised  schemes 
that  came  to  maturity  two  years  later,  and  inflicted 
incalculable  injury  upon  the  State. 

Lincoln  returned  to  New  Salem,  after  this  win- 
ter's experience  of  men  and  things  at  the  little 
capital,  much  firmer  on  his  feet  than  ever  before. 
He  had  had  the  opportunity  of  measuring  himself 
with  the  leading  men  of  the  community,  and  had 
found  no  difficulty  whatever  in  keeping  pace  with 
them.  He  continued  his  studies  of  the  law  and 
surveying  together,  and  became  quite  indispen- 
sable in  the  latter  capacity —  so  much  so  that  Gen- 
eral Neale,  announcing  in  September,  1835,  the 
names  of  the  deputy  surveyors  of  Sangamon 
County,  placed  the  name  of  Lincoln  before  that 
of  his  old  master  in  the  science,  John  Calhoun. 
He  returned  to  the  Legislature  in  the  winter  of 
1835-6,  and  one  of  the  first  important  incidents  of 
the  session  was  the  election  of  a  senator  to  fill  the 


126  ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

Chap.  VII.  vacancy  occasioned  by  the  death  of  Elias  Kent 
Kane.  There  was  no  lack  of  candidates.  A  journal 
of  the  time  says :  "  This  intelligence  reached  Van- 
dalia  on  the  evening  of  the  26th  of  December,  and 
in  the  morning  nine  candidates  appeared  in  that 
place,  and  it  was  anticipated  that  a  number  more 
would  soon  be  in,  among  them  'the  lion  of  the 
"  sangamo  North,'  who,  it  is  thought,  will  claim  the  office  by 
january'2.  preemption."  It  is  not  known  who  was  the  roaring 
celebrity  here  referred  to,  but  the  successful  candi- 
date was  General  William  L.  D.  Ewing,  who  was 
elected  by  a  majority  of  one  vote.  Lincoln  and  the 
other  Whigs  voted  for  him,  not  because  he  was  a 
"  White  "  man,  as  they  frankly  stated,  but  because 
"  he  had  been  proscribed  by  the  Van  Buren  party." 
Mr.  Semple,  the  candidate  for  the  regular  Demo- 
cratic caucus,  was  beaten  simply  on  account  of  his 
political  orthodoxy. 

A  minority  is  always  strongly  in  favor  of  inde- 
pendent action  and  bitterly  opposed  to  caucuses, 
and  therefore  we  need  not  be  surprised  at  finding 
Mr.  Lincoln,  a  few  days  later  in  the  session,  joining 
in  hearty  denunciation  of  the  convention  system, 
which  had  already  become  popular  in  the  East,  and 
which  General  Jackson  was  then  urging  upon  his 
faithful  followers.  The  missionaries  of  this  new 
system  in  Illinois  were  Stephen  A.  Douglas,  re- 
cently from  Vermont,  the  shifty  young  lawyer  from 
Morgan  County,  who  had  just  succeeded  in  having 
himself  made  circuit  attorney  in  place  of  Colonel 
Hardin,  and  a  man  who  was  then  regarded  in 
Vandalia  as  a  far  more  important  and  dangerous 
person  than  Douglas,  Ebenezer  Peck,  of  Chicago. 
Peck  was  looked  upon  with  distrust  and  suspicion 


LEGISLATIVE    EXPEKIENCE  127 

for  several  reasons,  all  of  which  seemed  valid  to  chap.vii. 
the  rural  legislators  assembled  there.  He  came  from 
Canada,  where  he  had  been  a  member  of  the  pro- 
vincial parliament ;  it  was  therefore  imagined  that 
he  was  permeated  with  secret  hostility  to  republican 
institutions ;  his  garb,  his  furs,  were  of  the  fashion 
of  Quebec;  and  he  passed  his  time  indoctrinating 
the  Jackson  men  with  the  theory  and  practice  of 
party  organization,  teachings  which  they  eagerly 
absorbed,  and  which  seemed  sinister  and  ominous 
to  the  Whigs.  He  was  showing  them,  in  fact,  the 
way  in  which  elections  were  to  be  won ;  and  though 
the  Whigs  denounced  his  system  as  subversive  of 
individual  freedom  and  private  judgment,  it  was 
not  long  before  they  were  also  forced  to  adopt  it, 
or  be  left  alone  with  their  virtue.  The  organiza- 
tion of  political  parties  in  IlUnois  really  takes  its 
rise  from  this  time,  and  in  great  measure  from  the 
work  of  Mr.  Peck  with  the  Vandalia  Legislature. 
There  was  no  man  more  dreaded  and  disliked 
than  he  was  by  the  stalwart  young  Whigs  against 
whom  he  was  organizing  that  solid  and  disci- 
plined opposition.  But  a  quarter  of  a  century 
brings  wonderful  changes.  Twenty-five  years 
later  Mr.  Peck  stood  shoulder  to  shoulder  with 
these  very  men  who  then  reviled  him  as  a  Cana- 
dian emissary  of  tyranny  and  corruption,  —  with 
S.  T.  Logan,  0.  H.  Browning,  and  J.  K.  Dubois,— 
organizing  a  new  party  for  victory  under  the  name 
of  Abraham  Lincoln. 

The  Legislature  adjourned  on  the  18th  of  Janu- 
ary, having  made  a  beginning,  it  is  true,  in  the 
work  of  improving  the  State  by  statute,  though  its 
modest  work,  incorporating  canal  and  bridge  com- 


128  ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

Chap.  VII.  panies  and  providing  for  public  roads,  bore  no 
relation  to  the  ambitious  essays  of  its  successor. 
Among  the  bills  passed  at  this  session  was  an 
Apportionment  act,  by  which  Sangamon  County 
became  entitled  to  seven  representatives  and  two 
senators,  and  early  in  the  spring  eight  "  White " 
statesmen  of  the  county  were  ready  for  the  field 
— the  ninth,  Mr.  Herndon,  holding  over  as  State 
Senator.  It  seems  singular  to  us  of  a  later  day 
that  just  eight  prominent  men,  on  a  side,  should 
have  offered  themselves  for  these  places,  without 
the  intervention  of  any  primary  meetings.  Such  a 
thing,  if  we  mistake  not,  was  never  known  again 
in  Illinois.  The  convention  system  was  afterwards 
seen  to  be  an  absolute  necessity  to  prevent  the  dis- 
organization of  parties  through  the  restless  vanity 
of  obscure  and  insubordinate  aspirants.  But  the 
eight  who  "  took  the  stump  "  in  Sangamon  in  the 
summer  of  1836  were  supported  as  loyally  and  as 
energetically  as  if  they  had  been  nominated  with 
all  the  solemnity  of  modern  days.  They  became 
famous  in  the  history  of  the  State,  partly  for  their 
stature  and  partly  for  their  influence  in  legisla- 
tion. They  were  called,  with  Herndon,  the  "Long 
Nine " ;  their  average  height  was  over  six  feet, 
and  their  aggregate  altitude  was  said  to  be  fifty- 
five  feet.  Their  names  were  Abraham  Lincoln, 
John  Dawson,  Dan  Stone,  Ninian  W.  Edwards, 
William  F.  Elkin,  R.  L.  Wilson,  and  Andrew 
McCormick,  candidates  for  the  House  of  Repre- 
sentatives, and  Job  Fletcher  for  the  Senate,  of 
Illinois. 

Mr.  Lincoln  began  his  canvass  with  the  following 
circular : 


O.   H.  BROWNING. 


THE  15'^'^ 
OF  TBE 


I 


LEGISLATIVE    EXPEKIENCE  129 

New  Salem,  June  13, 1836.       chap.vil 
To  the  Editor  of  the  "  Journal." 

In  youi"  paper  of  last  Saturday  I  see  a  communication 
over  the  signature  "  Many  Voters  "  in  which  the  candi- 
dates who  are  announced  in  the  "  Journal "  are  called 
upon  to  "  show  their  hands."     Agreed.     Here  's  mine. 

I  go  for  all  sharing  the  privileges  of  the  Government 
who  assist  in  bearing  its  burdens.  Consequently  I  go  for 
admitting  all  whites '  to  the  right  of  suffrage  who  pay 
taxes  or  bear  arms  (by  no  means  excluding  females). 

If  elected,  I  shall  consider  the  whole  people  of  San- 
gamon my  constituents,  as  well  those  that  oppose  as 
those  that  support  me. 

While  acting  as  their  representative  I  shall  be  gov- 
erned by  their  will  on  all  subjects  upon  which  I  have  the 
means  of  knowing  what  their  will  is,  and  upon  all  others 
I  shall  do  what  my  own  judgment  teaches  me  will  best 
advance  their  interests.  Whether  elected  or  not,  I  go  for 
distributing  the  proceeds  of  the  sales  of  the  public  lands 
to  the  several  States,  to  enable  our  State,  in  common  with 
others,  to  dig  canals  and  construct  railroads  without  bor- 
rowing money  and  paying  interest  on  it. 

If  alive  on  the  first  Monday  in  November,  I  shaU  vote 
for  Hugh  L.  White  for  President.^ 

Very  respectfully, 

A.  Lincoln. 

It  would  be  hard  to  imagine  a  more  audacious 
and  unqualified  declaration  of  principles  and  inten- 
tions. But  it  was  the  fashion  of  the  hour  to  prom- 
ise exact  obedience  to  the  will  of  the  people,  and 
the  two  practical  questions  touched  by  this  circu- 
lar were  the  only  ones  then  much  talked  about. 
The  question  of  suffrage  for  aliens  was  a  living 
problem  in  the  State,  and  Mr.  Lincoln  naturally 
took  liberal  ground  on  it ;  and  he  was  also  in  favor 
of  getting  from  the  sale  of  public  lands  a  portion 
of  the  money  he  was  ready  to  vote  for  internal 

1  This  phrase  seems  to  have  anti- Jackson  party.  The  "cards" 
been  adopted  as  a  formula  by  the    of  several  candidates  contain  it. 

Vol.  I.— 9 


130  ABKAHAM    LINCOLN 

Chap.  VII.  improvements.  This  was  good  Whig  doctrine  at 
that  time,  and  the  young  politician  did  not  fancy 
he  could  go  wrong  in  following  in  such  a  matter 
the  lead  of  his  idol,  Henry  Clay. 

He  made  an  active  canvass,  and  spoke  frequently 
during  the  summer.  He  must  have  made  some 
part  of  the  campaign  on  foot,  for  we  find  in  the 
county  paper  an  advertisement  of  a  horse  which 
had  strayed  or  been  stolen  from  him  while  on  a 
visit  to  Springfield.  It  was  not  an  imposing 
animal,  to  judge  from  the  description;  it  was 
"  plainly  marked  with  harness,"  and  was  "  believed 
to  have  lost  some  of  his  shoes  " ;  but  it  was  a  large 
horse,  as  suited  a  cavalier  of  such  stature,  and 
"  trotted  and  paced  "  in  a  serviceable  manner.  In 
July  a  rather  remarkable  discussion  took  place 
at  the  county-seat,  in  which  many  of  the  leading 
men  on  both  sides  took  part.  Ninian  Edwards, 
son  of  the  late  Governor,  is  said  to  have  opened  the 
debate  with  much  effect.  Mr.  Early,  who  followed 
him,  was  so  roused  by  his  energetic  attack  that  he 
felt  his  only  resource  was  aflat  contradiction,  which 
in  those  days  meant  mischief.  In  the  midst  of 
great  and  increasing  excitement  Dan  Stone  and 
John  Calhoun  made  speeches  which  did  not  tend 
to  pour  oil  on  the  waters  of  contention,  and  then 
came  Mr.  Lincoln's  turn.  An  article  in  the  "Jour- 
nal" states  that  he  seemed  embarrassed  in  his 
opening,  for  this  was  the  most  important  contest  in 
which  he  had  ever  been  engaged.  But  he  soon  felt 
the  easy  mastery  of  his  powers  come  back  to  him, 
and  he  finally  made  what  was  universally  regarded 
as  the  strongest  speech  of  the  day.  One  of  his  col- 
leagues says  that  on  this  occasion  he  used  in  his 


LEGISLATIVE    EXPEKIENCE  131 

excitement  for  the  first  time  that  singularly  effective   chap.  vii. 
clear  tenor  tone  of  voice  which  afterwards  became 
so  widely  known  in  the  political  battles  of  the  West. 

The  canvass  was  an  energetic  one  throughout, 
and  excited  more  interest  in  the  district  than  even 
the  presidential  election,  which  occurred  some 
months  later.  Mr.  Lincoln  was  elected  at  the  head 
of  the  poll  by  a  majority  greatly  in  excess  of  the 
average  majority  of  his  friends,  which  shows  con- 
clusively how  his  influence  and  popularity  had 
increased.  The  Whigs  in  this  election  effected  a 
revolution  in  the  politics  of  the  county.  By  force 
of  their  ability  and  standing  they  had  before  man- 
aged to  divide  the  suffrages  of  the  people,  even 
while  they  were  unquestionably  in  the  minority ; 
but  this  year  they  completely  defeated  their  oppo- 
nents and  gained  that  control  of  the  county  which 
they  never  lost  as  long  as  the  party  endured. 

If  Mr.  Lincoln  had  no  other  claims  to  be  re- 
membered than  his  services  in  the  Legislature  of 
1836-7,  there  would  be  little  to  say  in  his  favor.  Its 
history  is  one  of  disaster  to  the  State.  Its  legislation 
was  almost  wholly  unwise  and  hurtful.  The  most 
we  can  say  for  Mr.  Lincoln  is  that  he  obeyed  the 
will  of  his  constituents,  as  he  promised  to  do,  and 
labored  with  singular  skill  and  ability  to  accom- 
plish the  objects  desired  by  the  people  who  gave 
him  their  votes.  The  especial  work  intrusted  to 
him  was  the  subdivision  of  the  county,  and  the 
project  for  the  removal  of  the  capital  of  the  State 
to  Springfield.^    In  both  of  these  he  was  successful. 

1  "Lincoln  was  at  the  head  of  manage.     The  members  were  all 

the  project  to  remove  the  seat  of  elected  on  one  ticket,  but  they  all 

government   to    Springfield  ;     it  looked  to  Lincoln  as  the  head." — 

was  entirely  intrusted  to  him  to  Stephek  T.  Logan. 


132 


ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 


Chap.  VII.  In  the  account  of  errors  and  follies  committed  by 
the  Legislature  to  the  lasting  injury  of  the  State, 
he  is  entitled  to  no  praise  or  blame  beyond  the  rest. 
He  shared  in  that  sanguine  epidemic  of  financial 
and  industrial  quackery  which  devastated  the 
entire  community,  and  voted  with  the  best  men  of 
the  country  in  favor  of  schemes  which  appeared 
then  like  a  promise  of  an  immediate  millennium, 
and  seem  now  like  midsummer  madness. 

He  entered  political  life  in  one  of  those  eras  of 
delusive  prosperity  which  so  often  precede  great 
financial  convulsions.  The  population  of  the  State 
was  increasing  at  the  enormous  rate  of  two 
hundred  per  centum  in  ten  years.  It  had  extended 
northward  along  the  lines  of  the  wooded  valleys  of 
creeks  and  rivers  in  the  center  to  Peoria ;  on  the 
west  by  the  banks  of  the  Mississippi  to  Galena ; 
on  the  east  with  wide  intervals  of  wilderness  to 

Ford,  p.  102.  Chicago.  The  edge  of  the  timber  was  everywhere 
pretty  well  occupied,  though  the  immigrants  from 
the  forest  States  of  Kentucky  and  Tennessee  had 
as  yet  avoided  the  prairies.  The  rich  soil  and 
equable  climate  were  now  attracting  an  excellent 
class  of  settlers  from  the  older  States,  and  the 
long-neglected  northern  counties  were  receiving 
the  attention  they  deserved.  The  war  of  Black 
Hawk  had  brought  the  country  into  notice;  the 
utter  defeat  of  his  nation  had  given  the  guarantee 
of  a  permanent  peace ;    the  last  lodges   of    the 

Reynolds,   Pottawatomics  had  disappeared  from  the  country 

"  Life  and 

Times."  in  1833.  The  money  spent  by  the  general  Govern- 
ment during  the  war,  and  paid  to  the  volunteers 
at  its  close,  added  to  the  common  prosperity. 
There  was  a  brisk  trade  in  real  estate,  and  there 


LEGISLATIVE    EXPERIENCE  133 

was  even  a  beginniug  in  Chicago  of  that  passion   chap.vii. 
for  speculation  in  town  lots  which  afterwards  be- 
came a  frenzy. 

It  was  too  much  to  expect  of  the  Illinois  Leg- 
islature that  it  should  understand  that  the  best 
thing  it  could  do  to  forward  this  prosperous 
tendency  of  things  was  to  do  nothing ;  for  this  is  a 
lesson  which  has  not  yet  been  learned  by  any  leg- 
islature in  the  world.  For  several  years  they  had 
been  tinkering,  at  first  modestly  and  tentatively, 
at  a  scheme  of  internal  improvements  which  should 
not  cost  too  much  money.  In  1835  they  began  to 
grant  charters  for  railroads,  which  remained  in 
embryo,  as  the  stock  was  never  taken.  Surveys 
for  other  railroads  were  also  proposed,  to  cross  the 
State  in  different  directions;  and  the  project  of 
uniting  Lake  Michigan  with  the  Illinois  River  by 
a  canal  was  of  too  evident  utility  to  be  overlooked. 
In  fact,  the  route  had  been  surveyed,  and  estimates 
of  cost  made,  companies  incorporated,  and  all 
preliminaries  completed  many  years  before,  though 
nothing  further  had  been  done,  as  no  funds  had 
been  offered  from  any  source.  But  at  the  special 
session  of  1835  a  law  was  passed  authorizing  a  loan 
of  half  a  million  dollars  for  this  purpose ;  the  loan 
was  effected  by  Governor  Duncan  the  following 
year,  and  in  June,  a  board  of  canal  commissioners 
having  been  appointed,  a  beginning  was  actually 
made  with  pick  and  shovel. 

A    restless    feeUng    of    hazardous    speculation 
seemed  to  be  taking  possession  of  the  State.     "  It 
commenced,"  says  Governor  Ford,  in  his  admirable 
chronicle,   "at  Chicago,  and   was    the    means    of  Ford.p.isi. 
building  up  that  place  in  a  year  or  two  from  a 


134  ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

Chap.  VII.  village  of  a  few  houses  to  be  a  city  of  several 
thousand  inhabitants.  The  story  of  the  sudden 
fortunes  made  there  excited  at  first  wonder  and 
amazement ;  next,  a  gambling  spirit  of  adventure ; 
and  lastly,  an  all-absorbing  desire  for  sudden  and 
splendid  wealth.  Chicago  had  been  for  some  time 
only  one  great  town-market.  The  plots  of  towns 
for  a  hundred  miles  around  were  carried  there  to 
be  disposed  of  at  auction.  The  Eastern  people  had 
caught  the  mania.  Every  vessel  coming  west  was 
loaded  with  them,  theii'  money  and  means,  bound 
for  Chicago,  the  great  fairy-land  of  fortunes.  But 
as  enough  did  not  come  to  satisfy  the  insatiable 
greediness  of  the  Chicago  sharpers  and  speculators, 
they  frequently  consigned  their  wares  to  Eastern 
markets.  In  fact,  lands  and  town  lots  were  the 
staple  of  the  country,  and  were  the  only  article  of 
export."  The  contagion  spread  so  rapidly,  towns 
and  cities  were  laid  out  so  profusely,  that  it  was  a 
standing  joke  that  before  long  there  would  be  no 
land  left  in  the  State  for  farming  purposes. 

The  future  of  the  State  for  many  years  to  come 
was  thus  discounted  by  the  fervid  imaginations  of 
its  inhabitants.  "We  have  every  requisite  of  a 
great  empire,"  they  said,  "  except  enterprise  and 
inhabitants,"  and  they  thought  that  a  little  enter- 
prise would  bring  the  inhabitants.  Through  the 
spring  and  summer  of  1836  the  talk  of  internal  im- 
provements grew  more  general  and  more  clamor- 
ous. The  candidates  for  office  spoke  about  little 
else,  and  the  only  point  of  emulation  among  the 
parties  was  which  should  be  the  more  reckless  and 
grandiose  in  its  promises.  When  the  time  arrived 
for  the  assembling  of  the  Legislature,  the  members 


LEGISLATIVE    EXPEKIENCE  135 

were  not  left  to  their  own  zeal  and  the  recollection  chap.vii. 
of  their  campaign  pledges,  but  meetings  and  con- 
ventions were  everywhere  held  to  spur  them  up  to 
the  fulfillment  of  their  mandate.  The  resolutions 
passed  by  the  principal  body  of  delegates  who  came 
together  in  December  directed  the  Legislature  to 
vote  a  system  of  internal  improvements  "  com- 
mensurate with  the  wants  of  the  people,"  a  phrase 
which  is  never  lacking  in  the  mouth  of  the  char- 
latan or  the  demagogue. 

These  demands  were  pressed  upon  a  not  re- 
luctant Legislature.  They  addressed  themselves 
at  once  to  the  work  required  of  them,  and  soon 
devised,  with  reckless  and  unreasoning  haste,  a 
scheme  of  railroads  covering  the  vast  uninhabited 
prairies  as  with  a  gridiron.  There  was  to  be  a  rail- 
road from  Galena  to  the  mouth  of  the  Ohio  Eiver ; 
from  Alton  to  Shawneetown ;  from  Alton  to  Mount 
Carmel ;  from  Alton  to  the  eastern  State  boundary 
—  by  virtue  of  which  lines  Alton  was  to  take  the 
life  of  St.  Louis  without  further  notice  ;  from 
Quincy  to  the  Wabash  River ;  from  Bloomington  to 
Pekin ;  from  Peoria  to  Warsaw ;  —  in  all,  1350  miles 
of  railway.  Some  of  these  terminal  cities  were  not 
in  existence  except  upon  neatly  designed  surveyor's 
maps.  The  scheme  provided  also  for  the  improve- 
ment of  every  stream  in  the  State  on  which  a 
child's  shingle-boat  could  sail ;  and  to  the  end  that 
all  objections  should  be  stifled  on  the  part  of  those 
neighborhoods  which  had  neither  railroads  nor 
rivers,  a  gift  of  two  hundred  thousand  dollars  was 
voted  to  them,  and  with  this  sop  they  were  fain  to 
be  content  and  not  trouble  the  general  joy.  To 
accomplish  this  stupendous  scheme,  the  Legislature 


136  ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

Chap.  VII.   voted  eight  million  dollars,  to  be  raised  by  loan. 

^  Ford's  ^^  Four  millions  were  also  voted  to  complete  the 
p.  184.  '  canal.  These  sums,  monstrous  as  they  were, 
were  still  ridiculously  inadequate  to  the  purpose  in 
view.  But  while  the  frenzy  lasted  there  was  no 
consideration  of  cost  or  of  possibilities.  These  vast 
works  were  voted  without  estimates,  without  sur- 
veys, without  any  rational  consideration  of  their 
necessity.  The  voice  of  reason  seemed  to  be  silent 
in  the  Assembly;  only  the  utterances  of  fervid 
prophecy  found  listeners.  Governor  Ford  speaks 
of  one  orator  who  insisted,  amid  enthusiastic 
plaudits,  that  the  State  could  well  afford  to  borrow 
one  hundred  millions  for  internal  improvements. 
The  process  of  reasoning,  or  rather  predicting,  was 
easy  and  natural.  The  roads  would  raise  the  price 
of  land ;  the  State  could  enter  large  tracts  and  sell 
them  at  a  profit ;  foreign  capital  would  be  invested 
in  land,  and  could  be  heavily  taxed  to  pay  bonded 
interest ;  and  the  roads,  as  fast  as  they  were  built, 
could  be  operated  at  a  great  profit  to  pay  for  their 
own  construction.  The  climax  of  the  whole  folly 
was  reached  by  the  provision  of  law  directing  that 
work  should  be  begun  at  once  at  the  termini  of  all 
the  roads  and  the  crossings  of  all  rivers. 

It  is  futile  and  disingenuous  to  attempt,  as  some 
have  done,  to  fasten  upon  one  or  the  other  of  the 
political  parties  of  the  State  the  responsibility  of  this 
bedlam  legislation.  The  Governor  and  a  majority 
of  the  Legislature  were  elected  as  Jackson  Dem- 
ocrats, but  the  Whigs  were  as  earnest  in  passing 
these  measures  as  their  opponents ;  and  after  they 
were  adopted,  the  superior  wealth,  education,  and 
business  capacity  of  the  Whigs  had  their  legitimate 


LEGISLATIVE    EXPERIENCE  137 

influence,  and  they  filled  the  principal  positions  chap.  vii. 
upon  the  boards  and  commissions  which  came  into 
existence  under  the  acts.  The  bills  were  passed, — 
not  without  opposition,  it  is  true,  but  by  sufiicient 
majorities, —  and  the  news  was  received  by  the  peo- 
ple of  the  State  with  the  most  extravagant  demon- 
strations of  delight.  The  villages  were  illuminated  ; 
bells  were  rung  in  the  rare  steeples  of  the  churches ; 
"  fire-balls,"  —  bundles  of  candle-wick  soaked  in 
turpentine, — were  thrown  by  night  all  over  the 
country.  The  day  of  payment  was  far  away,  and 
those  who  trusted  the  assurances  of  the  sanguine 
politicians  thought  that  in  some  mysterious  way 
the  scheme  would  pay  for  itself. 

Mr.  Lincoln  is  continually  found  voting  with  his 
friends  in  favor  of  this  legislation,  and  there  is 
nothing  to  show  that  he  saw  any  danger  in  it. 
He  was  a  Whig,  and  as  such  in  favor  of  internal 
improvements  in  general  and  a  liberal  construction 
of  constitutional  law  in  such  matters.  As  a  boy, 
he  had  interested  himself  in  the  details  of  local 
improvements  of  rivers  and  roads,  and  he  doubt- 
less went  with  the  current  in  Vandalia  in  favor 
of  this  enormous  system.  He  took,  however,  no 
prominent  part  in  the  work  by  which  these  rail- 
road bills  were  passed.  He  considered  himself  as 
specially  commissioned  to  procure  the  removal  of 
the  State  capital  from  Vandalia  to  Springfield,  and 
he  applied  all  his  energies  to  the  accomplishment 
of  this  work.  The  enterprise  was  hedged  round 
with  difficulties;  for  although  it  was  everywhere 
agreed,  except  at  Vandalia,  that  the  capital  ought 
to  be  moved,  every  city  in  the  State,  and  several 
which  existed  only  on  paper,  demanded  to  be  made 


138  ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

chap.vii.  the  seat  of  government.  The  question  had  been 
submitted  to  a  popular  vote  in  1834,  and  the  result 
showed  about  as  many  cities  desirous  of  opening 
their  gates  to  the  Legislature  as  claimed  the  honor 
of  being  the  birthplace  of  Homer.  Of  these 
Springfield  was  only  third  in  popular  estimation, 
and  it  was  evident  that  Mr.  Lincoln  had  need  of 
all  his  wits  if  he  were  to  fulfill  the  trust  confided  to 
him.  It  is  said  by  Governor  Ford  that  the  "  Long 
Nine  "  were  not  averse  to  using  the  hopes  and  fears 
of  other  members  in  relation  to  their  special  rail- 
roads to  gain  their  adherence  to  the  Springfield 
progi'amme,  but  this  is  by  no  means  clear.  We  are 
rather  inclined  to  trust  the  direct  testimony  of 
Jesse  K.  Dubois,  that  the  success  of  the  Sangamon 
County  delegation  in  obtaining  the  capital  was  due 
to  the  adroit  management  of  Mr.  Lincoln  —  first  in 
inducing  all  the  rival  claimants  to  unite  in  a  vote 
to  move  the  capital  from  Vandalia,  and  then  in 
carrying  a  direct  vote  for  Springfield  through  the 
joint  convention  by  the  assistance  of  the  southern 
counties.  His  personal  authority  accomplished 
this  in  great  part.  Mr.  Dubois  says :  "  He  made 
Webb  and  me  vote  for  the  removal,  though  we 
belonged  to  the  southern  end  of  the  State.  We 
defended  our  vote  before  our  constituents  by  say- 
ing that  necessity  would  ultimately  force  the  seat 
of  government  to  a  central  position.  But  in  reality 
we  gave  the  vote  to  Lincoln  because  we  liked  him, 
because  we  wanted  to  oblige  our  friend,  and  because 
we  recognized  him  as  our  leader."  To  do  this,  they 
were  obliged  to  quarrel  with  their  most  intimate 
associates,  who  had  bought  a  piece  of  waste  land 
at  the  exact  geographical  center  of  the  State  and 


LEGISLATIVE    EXPERIENCE  139 

were  striving  to  have  the  capital  established  there   chap.vii. 
in  the  interest  of  their  own  pockets  and  territorial 
symmetry. 

The  bill  was  passed  only  a  short  time  before  the 
Legislature  adjourned,  and  the  "  Long  Nine  "  came 
back  to  their  constituents  wearing  their  well-won 
laurels.  They  were  complimented  in  the  news- 
papers, at  public  meetings,  and  even  at  subscrip- 
tion dinners.  We  read  of  one  at  Springfield,  at 
the  "  Rural  Hotel,"  to  which  sixty  guests  sat  down, 
where  there  were  speeches  by  Browning,  Lin- 
coln, Douglas  (who  had  resigned  his  seat  in  the 
Legislature  to  become  Register  of  the  Land  Office 
at  the  new  capital),  S.  T.  Logan,  Baker,  and  others, 
whose  wit  and  wisdom  were  lost  to  history 
through  the  absence  of  reporters.  Another  dinner 
was  given  them  at  Athens  a  few  weeks  later. 
Among  the  toasts  on  these  occasions  were  two 
which  we  may  transcribe :  "  Abraham  Lincoln : 
He  has  fulfilled  the  expectations  of  his  friends,  and 
disappointed  the  hopes  of  his  enemies  " ;  and  "  A. 
Lincoln :  One  of  Nature's  noblemen." 


CHAPTER    VIII 


THE    LINCOLN-STONE    PROTEST 


Chap.  VIII.  (^\^  the  3d  of  March,  the  day  before  the  Legis- 
1837.  y~y  lature  adjourned,  Mr.  Lincoln  caused  to  be 
entered  upon  its  records  a  paper  which  excited  but 
little  interest  at  the  time,  but  which  will  probably 
be  remembered  long  after  the  good  and  evil  actions 
of  the  Vandalia  Assembly  have  faded  away  from 
the  minds  of  men.  It  was  the  authentic  record  of 
the  beginning  of  a  great  and  momentous  career. 

The  following  protest  was  presented  to  the 
House,  which  was  read  and  ordered  to  be  spread 
on  the  journals,  to  wit : 

Resolutions  upon  the  subject  of  domestic  slavery  hav- 
ing passed  both  branches  of  the  General  Assembl}^  at  its 
present  session,  the  undersigned  hereby  protest  against  the 
passage  of  the  same. 

They  beheve  that  the  institution  of  slavery  is  founded 
on  both  injustice  and  bad  policy,  but  that  the  promulga- 
tion of  abolition  doctrines  tends  rather  to  increase  than 
abate  its  evils. 

They  believe  that  the  Congress  of  the  United  States 
has  no  power  under  the  Constitution  to  interfere  with  the 
institution  of  slavery  in  the  different  States. 

They  believe  that  the  Congress  of  the  United  States 
has  the  power,  under  the  Constitution,  to  abolish  slavery 
in  the  District  of  Columbia,  but  that  the  power  ought  not 

140 


THE    LINCOLN-STONE    PKOTEST  141 

to  be  exercised,  unless  at  the  request  of  the  people  of  the  chap.  viii. 
District. 

The  difference  between  these  opinions  and  those  con- 
tained in  the  above  resolutions  is  their  reason  for  enter- 
ing this  protest. 

(Signed)       Dan  Stone, 
A.  LrNCOLN, 
Representatives  from  the  county  of  Sangamon. 

It  may  seem  strange  to  those  who  shall  read 
these  pages  that  a  protest  so  mild  and  cautious  as 
this  should  ever  have  been  considered  either  neces- 
sary or  remarkable.  We  have  gone  so  far  away 
from  the  habits  of  thought  and  feeling  prevalent 
at  that  time  that  it  is  difficult  to  appreciate  such 
acts  at  their  true  value.  But  if  we  look  a  little  care- 
fully into  the  state  of  politics  and  public  opinion  in 
Illinois  in  the  first  half  of  this  century,  we  shall 
see  how  much  of  inflexible  conscience  and  reason 
there  was  in  this  simple  protest. 

The  whole  of  the  North-west  territory  had,  it 
is  true,  been  dedicated  to  freedom  by  the  ordi- 
nance of  1787,  but  in  spite  of  that  famous  prohibi- 
tion, slavery  existed  in  a  modified  form  throughout 
that  vast  territory  wherever  there  was  any  con- 
siderable population.  An  act  legalizing  a  sort  of 
slavery  by  indenture  was  passed  by  the  Indiana  j,^^^^^^^ 
territorial  Legislature  in  1807,  and  this  remained  "History of 

.  Illinois " 

in  force  in  the  Illinois  country  after  its  separation.  p.  179.' 
Another  act  providing  for  the  hiring  of  slaves  from 
Southern  States  was  passed  in  1814,  for  the  osten- 
sible reason  that  "  mills  could  not  be  successfully 
operated  in  the  territory  for  want  of  laborers,  and 
that  the  manufacture  of  salt  could  not  be  success- 

Edwards, 

fully  carried  on  by  white  laborers."    Yet,  as  an  un-      p.  iso. 
conscious  satire  upon  such  pretenses,  from  time  to 


142  ABEAHAM    LINCOLN 

Chap.  VIII.  time  the  most  savage  acts  were  passed  to  prohibit 
the  immigration  of  free  negroes  into  the  territory 
which  was  represented  as  pining  for  black  labor. 
Those  who  held  slaves  under  the  French  domina- 
tion, and  their  heirs,  continued  to  hold  them  and 
their  descendants  in  servitude,  after  Illinois  had 
become  nominally  a  free  territory  and  a  free  State, 
on  the  ground  that  their  vested  rights  of  property 
could  not  have  been  abrogated  by  the  ordinance, 
and  that  under  the  rule  of  the  civil  law  partus 
sequitur  ventrem. 

But  this  quasi-toleration  of  the  institution  was 
not  enough  for  the  advocates  of  slavery.  Soon 
after  the  adoption  of  the  State  Constitution,  which 
prohibited  slavery  "  hereafter,"  it  was  evident  that 
there  was  a  strong  under-current  of  desire  for  its 
introduction  into  the  State.  Some  of  the  leading 
politicians,  exaggerating  the  extent  of  this  desire, 
imagined  they  saw  in  it  a  means  of  personal 
advancement,  and  began  to  agitate  the  question  of 
a  convention  to  amend  the  Constitution.  At  that 
time  there  was  a  considerable  emigration  setting 
through  the  State  from  Kentucky  and  Tennessee 
to  Missouri.  Day  by  day  the  teams  of  the  movers 
passed  through  the  Illinois  settlements,  and  wher- 
ever they  halted  for  rest  and  refreshment  they  would 
affect  to  deplore  the  short-sighted  policy  which,  by 
prohibiting  slavery,  had  prevented  their  settling  in 
that  beautiful  country.  When  young  bachelors 
came  from  Kentucky  on  trips  of  business  or  pleas- 
ure, they  dazzled  the  eyes  of  the  women  and 
excited  the  envy  of  their  male  rivals  with  their 
black  retainers.  The  early  Illinoisans  were  per- 
plexed with  a  secret  and  singular  sense  of  inferi- 


THE    LINCOLN-STONE    PROTEST  143 

ority  to  even  so  new  and  raw  a  community  as  chap.viii. 
Missouri,  because  of  its  possession  of  slavery. 
Governor  Edwards,  complaining  so  late  as  1829 
of  the  superior  mail  facilities  afforded  to  Missouri, 
says :  "  I  can  conceive  of  no  reason  for  this  prefer- 
ence, unless  it  be  supposed  that  because  the  people 
of  Missouri  have  negroes  to  work  for  them  they 
are  to  be  considered  as  gentlefolks  entitled  to 
higher  consideration  than  us  plain  'free-State' 
folks  who  have  to  work  for  ourselves." 

The  attempt  was  at  last  seriously  made  to  open 
the  State  to  slavery  by  the  Legislature  of  1822-3. 
The  Governor,  Edward  Coles,  of  Vii'ginia,  a  strong 
antislavery  man,  had  been  elected  by  a  division  of 
the  pro-slavery  party,  but  came  in  with  a  Legisla- 
ture largely  against  him.  The  Senate  had  the 
requisite  pro-slavery  majority  of  two-thirds  for  a 
convention.  In  the  House  of  Representatives 
there  was  a  contest  for  a  seat  upon  the  result  of 
which  the  two-thirds  majority  depended.  The  seat 
was  claimed  by  John  Shaw  and  Nicholas  Hansen, 
of  Pike  County.  The  way  in  which  the  contest 
was  decided  affords  a  curious  illustration  of  the 
moral  sense  of  the  advocates  of  slavery.  They 
wanted  at  this  session  to  elect  a  senator  and  pro- 
vide for  the  convention.  Hansen  would  vote  for 
their  senator  and  not  for  the  convention.  Shaw 
would  vote  for  the  convention,  but  not  for  Thomas, 
their  candidate  for  senator.  In  such  a  dilemma 
they  determined  not  to  choose,  but  impartially  to 
use  both.  They  gave  the  seat  to  Hansen,  and  with 
his  vote  elected  Thomas ;  they  then  turned  him 
out,  gave  the  place  to  Shaw,  and  with  his  vote 
carried  the  act  for  submitting  the  convention  ques- 


144  ABKAHAM    LINCOLN 

Chap.  VIII.  tion  to  a  popular  vote.  They  were  not  more  mag- 
nanimous in  their  victory  than  scrupulous  in  the 
means  by  which  they  had  gained  it.  The  night 
after  the  vote  was  taken  they  formed  in  a  wild  and 
drunken  procession,  and  visited  the  residences  of 
the  Grovernor  and  the  other  free-State  leaders,  with 
loud  and  indecent  demonstrations  of  triumph. 

They  considered  their  success  already  assured ; 
but  they  left  out  of  view  the  value  of  the  moral 
forces  called  into  being  by  their  insolent  challenge. 
The  better  class  of  people  in  the  State,  those  here- 
tofore unknown  in  politics,  the  schoolmasters,  the 
ministers,  immediately  prepared  for  the  contest, 
which  became  one  of  the  severest  the  State  has  ever 
known.  They  established  three  newspapers,  and 
sustained  them  with  money  and  contributions. 
The  Governor  gave  his  entire  salary  for  four  yeiars 
to  the  expenses  of  this  contest,  in  which  he  had 
no  personal  interest  whatever.  The  antislavery 
members  of  the  Legislature  made  up  a  purse  of  a 
thousand  dollars.  They  spent  their  money  mostly 
in  printer's  ink  and  in  the  payment  of  active  and 
zealous  colporteurs.  The  result  was  a  decisive 
defeat  for  the  slave  party.  The  convention  was 
beaten  by  1800  majority,  in  a  total  vote  of  11,612, 
and  the  State  saved  forever  from  slavery. 

But  these  supreme  efforts  of  the  advocates  of 
public  morals,  uninfluenced  by  considerations  of 
personal  advantage,  are  of  rare  occurrence,  and 
necessarily  do  not  survive  the  exigencies  that  call 
them  forth.  The  apologists  of  slavery,  beaten  in 
the  canvass,  were  more  successful  in  the  field  of 
social  opinion.  In  the  reaction  which  succeeded 
the  triumph  of  the  antislavery  party,  it  seemed  as 


MARTIN    VAN    BUREN. 


THE  U'^'^^^^ 
OF  THE 


I 


THE    LINCOLN-STONE    PROTEST  145 

if  there  had  never  been  any  antislavery  sentiment  chap.viii. 
in  the  State.  They  had  voted,  it  is  true,  against 
the  importation  of  slaves  from  the  South,  but  they 
were  content  to  live  under  a  code  of  Draconian 
ferocity,  inspired  by  the  very  spirit  of  slavery, 
visiting  the  immigration  of  free  negroes  with 
penalties  of  the  most  savage  description.  Even 
Grovernor  Coles,  the  public-spirited  and  popular 
politician,  was  indicted  and  severely  fined  for  having 
brought  his  own  freedmen  into  the  State  and 
having  assisted  them  in  establishing  themselves 
around  him  upon  farms  of  their  own.  The  Leg- 
islature remitted  the  fine,  but  the  Circuit  Court 
declared  it  had  no  constitutional  power  to  do  so, 
though  the  Supreme  Court  afterwards  overruled 
this  decision.  Any  mention  of  the  subject  of 
slavery  was  thought  in  the  worst  possible  taste, 
and  no  one  could  avow  himself  opposed  to  it  with- 
out the  risk  of  social  ostracism.  Every  town  had 
its  one  or  two  abolitionists,  who  were  regarded  as 
harmless  or  dangerous  lunatics,  according  to  the 
energy  with  which  they  made  their  views  known. 

From  this  arose  a  singular  prejudice  against  New 
England  people.  It  was  attributable  partly  to  the 
natural  feeling  of  distrust  of  strangers  which  is 
common  to  ignorance  and  provincialism,  but  still 
more  to  a  general  suspicion  that  all  Eastern  men 
were  abolitionists.  Mr.  Cook,  who  so  long  rep- 
resented the  State  in  Congress,  used  to  relate  with 
much  amusement  how  he  once  spent  the  night  in  a 
farmer's  cabin,  and  listened  to  the  honest  man's 

denunciations  of  "  that Yankee  Cook."    Cook 

was  a  Kentuckian,  but  his  enemies  could  think  of  no 
more  dreadful  stigma  to  apply  to  him  than  that  of 

Vol.  L— 10 


146  ABKAHAM   LINCOLN 

Chap.  VIII.  Calling  him  a  Yankee,  Senator  James  A.  McDougall 
once  told  us  that  although  he  made  no  pretense  of 
concealing  his  Eastern  nativity,  he  never  could 
keep  his  ardent  friends  in  Pike  County  from  denying 
the  fact  and  fighting  any  one  who  asserted  it.  The 
great  preacher,  Peter  Cartwright,  used  to  denounce 
Eastern  men  roundly  in  his  sermons,  calling  them 
"imps  who  lived  on  oysters"  instead  of  honest 
corn-bread  and  bacon.  The  taint  of  slavery,  the 
contagion  of  a  plague  they  had  not  quite  escaped, 
was  on  the  people  of  Illinois.  They  were  strong 
enough  to  rise  once  in  their  might  and  say  they 
would  not  have  slavery  among  them.  But  in  the 
petty  details  of  every  day,  in  their  ordinary  talk, 
and  in  their  routine  legislation,  their  sympathies 
were  still  with  the  slave-holders.  They  would  not 
enlist  with  them,  but  they  would  fight  their  battles 
in  their  own  way. 

Their  readiness  to  do  what  came  to  be  called 
later,  in  a  famous  speech,  the  "  dirty  work  "  of  the 
South  was  seen  in  the  tragic  death  of  Eev.  Elijah 
P.  Love  joy,  in  this  very  year  of  1837.  He  had 
for  some  years  been  publishing  a  religious  news- 
paper in  St.  Louis,  but  finding  the  atmosphere  of 
that  city  becoming  dangerous  to  him  on  account  of 
the  freedom  of  his  comments  upon  Southern  insti- 
tutions, he  moved  to  Alton,  in  Illinois,  twenty-five 
miles  further  up  the  river.  His  arrival  excited  an 
immediate  tumult  in  that  place;  a  mob  gathered 
there  on  the  day  he  came — it  was  Sunday,  and  the 
good  people  were  at  leisure  —  and  threw  his  press 
into  the  Mississippi.  Having  thus  expressed  their 
determination  to  vindicate  the  law,  they  held  a 
meeting,  and  cited  him  before  it  to  declare  his 


THE    LINCOLN-STONE    PKOTEST  147 

intentions.  He  said  they  were  altogether  peaceful  chap.viii. 
and  legal ;  that  he  intended  to  publish  a  religious 
newspaper  and  not  to  meddle  with  politics.  This 
seemed  satisfactory  to  the  people,  and  he  was 
allowed  to  fish  out  his  press,  buy  new  types,  and 
set  up  his  paper.  But  Mr.  Lovejoy  was  a  predes- 
tined martyr.  He  felt  there  was  a  "  woe  "  upon  him 
if  he  held  his  peace  against  the  wickedness  across 
the  river.  He  wrote  and  published  what  was  in 
his  heart  to  say,  and  Alton  was  again  vehemently 
moved.  A  committee  appointed  itself  to  wait  upon 
him;  for  this  sort  of  outrage  is  usually  accom- 
plished with  a  curious  formality  which  makes  it 
seem  to  the  participants  legal  and  orderly.  The 
preacher  met  them  with  an  undaunted  front  and 
told  them  he  must  do  his  duty  as  it  appeared  to 
him;  that  he  was  amenable  to  law,  but  nothing 
else;  he  even  spoke  in  condemnation  of  mobs. 
Such  language  "from  a  minister  of  the  gospel" 
shocked  and  infuriated  the  committee  and  those 
whom  they  represented.  "  The  people  assembled," 
says  Governor  Ford, "  and  quietly  took  the  press 
and  types  and  threw  them  into  the  river."  We 
venture  to  say  that  the  word  "  quietly "  never 
before  found  itself  in  such  company.  It  is  not 
worth  while  to  give  the  details  of  the  bloody  drama 
that  now  rapidly  ran  to  its  close.  There  was  a 
fruitless  effort  at  compromise,  which  to  Lovejoy 
meant  merely  surrender,  and  which  he  firmly 
rejected.  The  threats  of  the  mob  were  answered 
by  defiance  from  the  little  band  that  surrounded 
the  abolitionist.  A  new  press  was  ordered,  and 
arrived,  and  was  stored  in  a  warehouse,  where 
Lovejoy  and  his  friends  shut  themselves  up,  de- 


148  ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

CHAP.vni.  termined  to  defend  it  with  their  lives.  They  were 
there  besieged  by  the  infuriated  crowd,  and  after  a 
short  interchange  of  shots  Love  joy  was  killed,  his 
friends  dispersed,  and  the  press  once  more  —  and 
this  time  finally  —  thrown  into  the  turbid  flood. 

These  events  took  place  in  the  autumn  of  1837, 
but  they  indicate  sufficiently  the  temper  of  the 
people  of  the  State  in  the  earlier  part  of  the  year. 
The  vehemence  with  which  the  early  antislavery 
apostles  were  conducting  their  agitation  in  the 
East  naturally  roused  a  corresponding  violence  of 
expression  in  every  other  part  of  the  country. 
William  Lloyd  G-arrison,  the  boldest  and  most 
aggressive  non-resistant  that  ever  lived,  had,  since 
1831,  been  pouring  forth  once  a  week  in  the 
"  Liberator "  his  earnest  and  eloquent  denuncia- 
tions of  slavery,  taking  no  account  of  the  expedient 
or  the  possible,  but  demanding  with  all  the  fervor 
of  an  ancient  prophet  the  immediate  removal  of 
the  cause  of  offense.  Oliver  Johnson  attacked  the 
national  sin  and  wrong,  in  the  "  Standard,"  with 
zeal  and  energy  equally  hot  and  untiring.  Their 
words  stung  the  slave-holding  States  to  something 
like  frenzy.      The   Georgia  Legislature  offered  a 

approved  rcward  of  five  thousand  dollars  to  any  one  who 
1831. '  should  kidnap  Garrison,  or  who  should  bring  to 
conviction  any  one  circulating  the  "  Liberator  "  in 
the  State.  Yet  so  little  known  in  their  own 
neighborhoods  were  these  early  workers  in  this  great 
reform  that  when  the  Mayor  of  Boston  received 
remonstrances  from  certain  Southern  States  against 
such  an  incendiary  publication  as  the  "  Liberator," 
he  was  able  to  say  that  no  member  of  the  city 
government  and  no  person  of  his  acquaintance  had 


THE    LINCOLN-STONE    PKOTEST  149 

ever  heard  of  the  paper  or  its  editor;  that  on  chap.viii. 
search  being  made  it  was  found  that  "his  office 
was  an  obscure  hole,  his  only  visible  auxihary  a 
negro  boy,  and  his  supporters  a  very  few  insignifi- 
cant persons  of  all  colors."  But  the  leaven  worked 
continually,  and  by  the  time  of  which  we  are  writ- 
ing the  antislavery  societies  of  the  North-east  had 
attained  a  considerable  vitality,  and  the  echoes  of 
their  work  came  back  from  the  South  in  furious 
resolutions  of  legislatures  and  other  bodies,  which, 
in  their  exasperation,  could  not  refrain  from  this 
injudicious  advertising  of  their  enemies.  Petitions 
to  Congress,  which  were  met  by  gag-laws,  constantly 
increasing  in  severity,  brought  the  dreaded  dis- 
cussion more  and  more  before  the  public.  But 
there  was  as  yet  little  or  no  antislavery  agitation 
in  Illinois. 

There  was  no  sympathy  with  nor  even  toleration 
for  any  public  expression  of  hostility  to  slavery. 
The  zeal  of  the  followers  of  Jackson,  although  he 
had  ceased  to  be  President,  had  been  whetted  by 
his  public  denunciations  of  the  antislavery  propa- 
ganda ;  little  more  than  a  year  before  he  had  called 
upon  Congress  to  take  measures  to  "  prohibit  under 
severe  penalties  "  the  further  progress  of  such 
incendiary  proceedings  as  were  "  calculated  to 
stimulate  the  slaves  to  insurrection  and  to  produce 
all  the  horrors  of  civil  war."  But  in  spite  of  all 
this,  people  with  uneasy  consciences  continued 
to  write  and  talk  and  petition  Congress  against 
slavery,  and  most  of  the  State  legislatures  began 
to  pass  resolutions  denouncing  them.  In  the  last 
days  of  1836  Governor  Duncan  sent  to  the  Illinois 
Legislature  the  reports  and  resolutions  of  several 


150  ABEAHAM    LINCOLN 

Chap. VIII.  States  in  relation  to  this  subject.  They  were 
referred  to  a  committee,  who  in  due  time  reported 
a  set  of  resolves  "  highly  disapproving  abolition 
societies";  holding  that  "the  right  of  property  in 
slaves  is  secured  to  the  slave-holding  States  by  the 
Federal  Constitution";  that  the  general  Grovern- 
ment  cannot  abolish  slavery  in  the  District  of 
Columbia  against  the  consent  of  the  citizens  of 
said  District,  without  a  manifest  breach  of  good 
faith ;  and  requesting  the  Governor  to  transmit  to 
the  States  which  had  sent  their  resolutions  to  him 
a  copy  of  those  tranquilizing  expressions.  A  long 
and  dragging  debate  ensued  of  which  no  record 
has  been  preserved;  the  resolutions,  after  num- 
berless amendments  had  been  voted  upon,  were 

Jan.  25  ir         7 

1837. '  finally  passed,  in  the  Senate,  unanimously,  in  the 
House  with  none  but  Lincoln  and  five  others  in  the 
negative.'  No  report  remains  of  the  many  speeches 
which  prolonged  the  debate;  they  have  gone  the 
way  of  all  buncombe ;  the  sound  and  fury  of  them 
have  passed  away  into  silence ;  but  they  woke  an 
echo  in  one  sincere  heart  which  history  will  be  glad 
to  perpetuate. 

There  was  no  reason  that  Abraham  Lincoln 
should  take  especial  notice  of  these  resolutions, 
more  than  another.  He  had  done  his  work  at  this 
session  in  effecting  the  removal  of  the  capital.  He 
had  only  to  shrug  his  shoulders  at  the  violence  and 
untruthfulness  of  the  majority,  vote  against  them, 
and  go  back  to  his  admiring  constituents,  to  his 
dinners  and  his  toasts.  But  his  conscience  and 
his  reason  forbade  him  to  be  silent ;  he  felt  a  word 

1  We  are  under  obligations  to    the  State  records  bearing  on  this 
John  M.  Adair  for  transcripts  of    matter. 


THE    LINCOLN-STONE    PKOTEST  151 

must  be  said  on  the  other  side  to  redress  the  dis-  chap.viii. 
torted  balance.  He  wrote  his  protest,  saying  not 
one  word  he  was  not  ready  to  stand  by  then  and 
thereafter,  wasting  not  a  syllable  in  rhetoric  or 
feeling,  keeping  close  to  law  and  truth  and  justice. 
When  he  had  finished  it  he  showed  it  to  some  of 
his  colleagues  for  their  adhesion ;  but  one  and  all 
refused,  except  Dan  Stone,  who  was  not  a  candi- 
date for  reelection,  having  retired  from  politics  to 
a  seat  on  the  bench.  The  risk  was  too  great  for 
the  rest  to  run.  Lincoln  was  twenty-eight  years 
old ;  after  a  youth  of  singular  privations  and 
struggles  he  had  arrived  at  an  enviable  position  in 
the  politics  and  the  society  of  the  State.  His  inti- 
mate friends,  those  whom  he  loved  and  honored, 
were  Browning,  Butler,  Logan,  and  Stuart — Ken- 
tuckians  all,  and  strongly  averse  to  any  discussion 
of  the  question  of  slavery.  The  public  opinion  of 
his  county,  which  was  then  little  less  than  the 
breath  of  his  life,  was  all  the  same  way.  But  all 
these  considerations  could  not  withhold  him  from 
performing  a  simple  duty  —  a  duty  which  no  one 
could  have  blamed  him  for  leaving  undone.  The 
crowning  grace  of  the  whole  act  is  in  the  closing 
sentence:  "The  difference  between  these  opinions 
and  those  contained  in  the  said  resolutions  is  their 
reason  for  entering  this  protest."  Reason  enough 
for  the  Lincolns  and  Luthers. 

He  bad  many  years  of  growth  and  development 
before  him.  There  was  a  long  distance  to  be  trav- 
ersed between  the  guarded  utterances  of  this  pro- 
test and  the  heroic  audacity  which  launched  the 
proclamation  of  emancipation.  But  the  young 
man  who  dared  declare,  in  the  prosperous  begin- 


152  ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

Chap.  VIII.  ning  of  his  political  life,  in  the  midst  of  a  com- 
munity imbued  with  slave-State  superstitions,  that 
"he  believed  the  institution  of  slavery  was  founded 
both  on  injustice  and  bad  policy," —  attacking  thus 
its  moral  and  material  supports,  while  at  the  same 
time  recognizing  all  the  constitutional  guarantees 
which  protected  it, —  had  in  him  the  making  of  a 
statesman  and,  if  need  be,  a  martyr.  His  whole 
career  was  to  run  in  the  lines  marked  out  by  these 
words,  written  in  the  hurry  of  a  closing  session, 
and  he  was  to  accomplish  few  acts,  in  that  great 
history  which  God  reserved  for  him,  wiser  and 
nobler  than  this. 


CHAPTER  IX 


COLLAPSE    OF    THE    SYSTEM 


MR.  LINCOLN  had  made  thus  far  very  little  chap.ix. 
money  —  nothing  more,  in  fact,  than  a  sub- 
sistence of  the  most  modest  character.  But  he 
had  made  some  warm  friends,  and  this  meant 
much  among  the  early  lUinoisans.  He  had  be- 
come intimately  acquainted,  at  Vandalia,  with 
William  Butler,  who  was  greatly  interested  in  the 
removal  of  the  capital  to  Springfield,  and  who 
urged  the  young  legislator  to  take  up  his  residence 
at  the  new  seat  of  government.  Lincoln  readily 
fell  in  with  this  suggestion,  and  accompanied  his 
friend  home  when  the  Legislature  adjourned,  shar- 
ing the  lodging  of  Joshua  F.  Speed,  a  young  Ken- 
tucky merchant,  and  taking  his  meals  at  the  house 
of  Mr.  Butler  for  several  years. 

In  this  way  began  Mr.  Lincoln's  residence  in 
Springfield,  where  he  was  to  remain  until  called  to 
one  of  the  highest  of  destinies  intrusted  to  men, 
and  where  his  ashes  were  to  rest  forever  in  monu- 
mental marble.  It  would  have  seemed  a  dreary 
village  to  any  one  accustomed  to  the  world,  but  in 
a  letter  written  about  this  time,  Lincoln  speaks  of 

163 


154 


ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 


Chap.  IX. 


"  Sangamo 

Journal," 

November 

7, 1835. 


Reynolds, 

"  Life  and 

Times," 

p.  237. 


it  as  a  place  where  there  was  a  "  good  deal  of 
flourishing  about  in  carriages  "  —  a  town  of  some 
pretentions  to  elegance.  It  had  a  population  of 
1500.  The  county  contained  nearly  18,000  souls, 
of  whom  78  were  free  negroes,  20  registered  inden- 
tured servants,  and  six  slaves.  Scarcely  a  percep- 
tible trace  of  color,  one  would  say,  yet  we  find  in 
the  Springfield  paper  a  leading  article  beginning 
with  the  startling  announcement,  "Our  State  is 
threatened  to  be  overrun  with  free  negroes."  The 
county  was  one  of  the  richest  in  Illinois,  possessed 
of  a  soil  of  inexhaustible  fertility,  and  divided  to 
the  best  advantage  between  prairie  and  forest.  It 
was  settled  early  in  the  history  of  the  State,  and 
the  country  was  held  in  high  esteem  by  the 
aborigines.  The  name  of  Sangamon  is  said  to  mean 
in  the  Pottawatomie  language  "land  of  plenty." 
Its  citizens  were  of  an  excellent  class  of  people,  a 
large  majority  of  them  from  Kentucky,  though 
representatives  were  not  wanting  from  the  Eastern 
States,  men  of  education  and  character. 

There  had  been  very  little  of  what  might  be 
called  pioneer  life  in  Springfield.  Civilization 
came  in  with  a  reasonably  full  equipment  at  the 
beginning.  The  Edwardses,  in  fair-top  boots  and 
ruffled  shirts ;  the  Ridgelys  brought  their  banking 
business  from  Maryland;  the  Logans  and  Conk- 
lings  were  good  lawyers  before  they  arrived; 
another  family  came  from  Kentucky,  with  a  cot- 
ton manufactory  which  proved  its  aristocratic 
character  by  never  doing  any  work.  With  a  popu- 
lation like  this,  the  town  had,  from  the  beginning, 
a  more  settled  and  orderly  type  than  was  usual  in 
the  South  and  West.    A  glance  at  the  advertising 


COLLAPSE    OF    THE    SYSTEM  155 

columns  of  the  newspaper  will  show  how  much  at-  chap.ix. 
tention  to  di-ess  was  paid  in  the  new  capital.  "  Cloths, 
cassinetts,  cassimeres,  velvet,  silk,  satin,  and  Mar- 
seilles vestings,  fine  calf  boots,  seal  and  morocco 
pumps,  for  gentlemen,"  and  for  the  sex  which  in 
barbarism  dresses  less  and  in  civilization  dresses 
more  than  the  male,  "  silks,  bareges,  crepe  lisse,  lace 
veils,  thread  lace,  Thibet  shawls,  lace  handker- 
chiefs, fine  prunella  shoes,  etc."  It  is  evident  that 
the  young  politician  was  confronting  a  social 
world  more  formidably  correct  than  anything  he 
had  as  yet  seen. 

Governor  Ford  began  some  years  before  this  to 
remark  with  pleasure  the  change  in  the  dress  of 
the  people  of  Illinois:  the  gradual  disappearance 
of  leather  and  linsey-woolsey,  the  hunting-knife 
and  tomahawk,  from  the  garb  of  men ;  the  deer- 
skin moccasin  supplanted  by  the  leather  boot  and 
shoe ;  the  leather  breeches  tied  around  the  ankle 
replaced  by  the  modern  pantaloons ;  and  the  still 
greater  improvement  in  the  adornment  of  women, 
the  former  bare  feet  decently  shod,  and  homespun 
frocks  giving  way  to  gowns  of  calico  and  silk,  and 
the  heads  tied  up  in  red  cotton  turbans  disappear- 
ing in  favor  of  those  surmounted  by  pretty  bonnets 
of  silk  or  straw.  We  admit  that  these  changes  were 
not  unattended  with  the  grumbling  ill-will  of  the 
pioneer  patriarchs ;  they  predicted  nothing  but  ruin 
to  a  country  that  thus  forsook  the  old  ways  "  which 
were  good  enough  for  theii*  fathers."  But  with  the 
change  in  dress  came  other  alterations  which  were 
all  for  the  better  —  a  growing  self-respect  among 
the  young ;  an  industry  and  thrift  by  which  they 
could   buy  good    clothes ;   a  habit    of    attending 


156  ABEAHAM    LINCOLN 

CHAP.  IX.  religious  service,  where  they  could  show  them ;  a 
Ford's  progress  in  sociability,  civility,  trade,  and  morals. 
p%47'  The  taste  for  civilization  had  sometimes  a  whim- 
sical manifestation.  Mr.  Stuart  said  the  members 
of  the  Legislatui'e  bitterly  complained  of  the 
amount  of  game  —  venison  and  grouse  of  the  most 
delicious  quality  —  which  was  served  them  at  the 
taverns  in  Vandalia ;  they  clamored  for  bacon  — 
they  were  starving,  they  said,  "for  something 
civilized."  There  was  plenty  of  civilized  nourish- 
ment in  Springfield.  Wheat  was  fifty  cents  a 
bushel,  rye  thirty-three ;  corn  and  oats  were 
twenty-five,  potatoes  twenty-five ;  butter  was  eight 
cents  a  pound,  and  eggs  were  eight  cents  a  dozen  ; 
pork  was  two  and  a  half  cents  a  pound. 

The  town  was  built  on  the  edge  of  the  woods, 
the  north  side  touching  the  timber,  the  south  en- 
croaching on  the  prairie.  The  richness  of  the  soil 
was  seen  in  the  mud  of  the  streets,  black  as  ink, 
and  of  an  unfathomable  depth  in  time  of  thaw. 
There  were,  of  course,  no  pavements  or  sidewalks ; 
an  attempt  at  crossings  was  made  by  laying  down 
large  chunks  of  wood.  The  houses  were  almost  all 
wooden,  and  were  disposed  in  rectangular  blocks. 
A  large  square  had  been  left  in  the  middle  of  the 
town,  in  anticipation  of  future  greatness,  and  there, 
when  Lincoln  began  his  residence,  the  work  of 
clearing  the  ground  for  the  new  State-house  was 
already  going  forward.  In  one  of  the  largest 
houses  looking  on  the  square,  at  the  north-west 
corner,  the  county  court  had  its  offices,  and  other 
rooms  in  the  building  were  let  to  lawyers.  One  of 
these  was  occupied  by  Stuart  and  Lincoln,  for  the 
friendship  formed  in  the  Black  Hawk  war   and 


COLLAPSE    OF    THE    SYSTEM  157 

strengthened  at  Vandalia  induced  "  Major"  Stuart    chap.ix. 
to  offer  a  partnership  to  "  Captain  "  Lincoln.^ 

Lincoln  did  not  gain  any  immediate  eminence  at 
the  bar.  His  preliminary  studies  had  been  cursory 
and  slight,  and  Stuart  was  then  too  much  en- 
grossed in  politics  to  pay  the  unremitting  attention 
to  the  law  which  that  jealous  mistress  requires.  He 
had  been  a  candidate  for  Congress  the  year  before, 
and  had  been  defeated  by  W.  L.  May.  He  was  a 
candidate  again  in  1838,  and  was  elected  over  so 
agile  an  adversary  as  Stephen  Arnold  Douglas. 
His  paramount  interest  in  these  canvasses  neces- 
sarily prevented  him  from  setting  to  his  junior 
partner  the  example  which  Lincoln  so  greatly 
needed,  of  close  and  steady  devotion  to  their  pro- 
fession. It  was  several  years  later  that  Lincoln 
found  with  Judge  Logan  the  companionship  and 
inspiration  which  he  required,  and  began  to  be 
really  a  lawyer.  During  the  first  year  or  two  he  is 
principally  remembered  in  Springfield  as  an  excel- 
lent talker,  the  life  and  soul  of  the  little  gatherings 
about  the  county  offices,  a  story-teller  of  the  first 
rank,  a  good-natured,  friendly  fellow  whom  every- 
body liked  and  trusted.  He  relied  more  upon  his 
influence  with  a  jury  than  upon  his  knowledge  of 
law  in  the  few  cases  he  conducted  in  court,  his 
acquaintance  with  human  nature  being  far  more 
extensive  than  his  legal  lore. 

Lincoln  was  not  yet  done  with  Vandalia,  its 
dinners  of  game,  and  its  political  intrigue.    The 

1  It  is  not  unworthy  of  notice  Lincoln,  who  had  actually  been 

that  in  a  country  where  military  commissioned,   and    had    served 

titles  were  conferred  with  ludi-  as  captain,  never  used  the  des- 

crous  profusion,  and  borne  with  ignation  after  he  laid  down  his 

absurd   complacency,    Abraham  command. 


158  ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

Chap.  IX.  archives  of  the  State  were  not  removed  to  Spring- 
field until  1839,  and  Lincoln  remained  a  member 
of  the  Legislature  by  successive  reelections  from 
1834  to  1842.  His  campaigns  were  carried  on 
almost  entirely  without  expense.  Joshua  Speed 
told  the  writers  that  on  one  occasion  some  of  the 
Whigs  contributed  a  purse  of  two  hundred  dollars 
which  Speed  handed  to  Lincoln  to  pay  his  personal 
expenses  in  the  canvass.  After  the  election  was 
over,  the  successful  candidate  handed  Speed 
$199.25,  with  the  request  that  he  return  it  to  the 
subscribers.  "  I  did  not  need  the  money,"  he  said. 
"  I  made  the  canvass  on  my  own  horse ;  my  enter- 
tainment, being  at  the  houses  of  friends,  cost  me 
nothing;  and  my  only  outlay  was  seventy-five 
cents  for  a  barrel  of  cider,  which  some  farm-hands 
insisted  I  should  treat  them  to."  He  was  called 
down  to  Vandalia  in  the  summer  of  1837,  by  a 
special  session  of  the  Legislature.  The  magnificent 
schemes  of  the  foregoing  winter  required  some 
repairing.  The  banks  throughout  the  United 
States  had  suspended  specie  payments  in  the 
spring,  and  as  the  State  banks  in  Illinois  were  the 
fiscal  agents  of  the  railroads  and  canals,  the  Gov- 
ernor called  upon  the  law-makers  to  revise  their 
own  work,  to  legalize  the  suspension,  and  bring 
their  improvement  system  within  possible  bounds. 
They  acted  as  might  have  been  expected :  complied 
with  the  former  suggestion,  but  flatly  refused  to 
touch  their  masterpiece.  They  had  been  glorifying 
their  work  too  energetically  to  destroy  it  in  its 
infancy.  It  was  said  you  could  recognize  a  leg- 
islator that  year  in  any  crowd  by  his  automatic 
repetition    of   the    phrase,   "  Thirteen  hundred  — 


COLLAPSE    OF    THE    SYSTEM 


159 


fellow-citizens! — and  fifty  miles  of  railroad!"  chap.ix. 
There  was  nothing  to  be  done  but  to  go  on  with 
the  stupendous  folly.  Loans  were  effected  with 
surprising  and  fatal  facility,  and,  "  before  the  end 
of  the  year,  work  had  begun  at  many  points  on  the 
railroads.  The  whole  State  was  excited  to  the 
highest  pitch  of  frenzy  and  expectation.  Money 
was  as  plenty  as  dirt.  Industry,  instead  of  being 
stimulated,  actually  languished.  We  exported 
nothing,"  says  Governor  Ford,  "and  everything 
from  abroad  was  paid  for  by  the  borrowed  money 
expended  among  us."  Not  only  upon  the  railroads, 
but  on  the  canal  as  well,  the  work  was  begun  on  a 
magnificent  scale.  Nine  millions  of  dollars  were 
thought  to  be  a  mere  trifle  in  view  of  the  colossal 
sum  expected  to  be  realized  from  the  sale  of  canal 
lands,  three  hundred  thousand  acres  of  which  had 
been  given  by  the  general  Government.  There 
were  rumors  of  coming  trouble,  and  of  an  unhealthy 
condition  of  the  banks;  but  it  was  considered 
disloyal  to  look  too  curiously  into  such  matters. 
One  frank  patriot,  who  had  been  sent  as  one  of  a 
committee  to  examine  the  bank  at  Shawneetown, 
when  asked  what  he  found  there,  replied  with  win- 
ning candor,  "  Plenty  of  good  whisky  and  sugar  to 
sweeten  it." 

But  a  year  of  baleful  experience  destroyed  a 
great  many  illusions,  and  in  the  election  of  1838  the 
subject  of  internal  improvements  was  treated  with 
much  more  reserve  by  candidates.  The  debt  of  the 
State,  issued  at  a  continually  increasing  discount, 
had  already  attained  enormous  proportions ;  the 
delirium  of  the  last  few  years  was  ending,  and 
sensible  people  began   to  be  greatly  disquieted. 


Ford's, 
History," 
p.  197. 


160  ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

Chap.  IX.  Nevertheless,  Mr.  Cyrus  Edwards  boldly  made  Ms 
canvass  for  Governor  as  a  supporter  of  the  sys- 
tem of  internal  improvements,  and  his  opponent, 
Thomas  Carlin,  was  careful  not  to  commit  himself 
strongly  on  the  other  side.  Carlin  was  elected, 
and  finding  that  a  majority  of  the  Legislature  was 
still  opposed  to  any  steps  backward,  he  made  no 
demonstration  against  the  system  at  the  first 
session.  Lincoln  was  a  member  of  this  body,  and, 
being  by  that  time  the  unquestioned  leader  of  the 
Whig  minority,  was  nominated  for  Speaker,  and 
came  within  one  vote  of  an  election.  The  Leg- 
islature was  still  stiff-necked  and  perverse  in  regard 
to  the  system.  It  refused  to  modify  it  in  the  least, 
and  voted,  as  if  in  bravado,  another  eight  hundred 
thousand  dollars  to  extend  it. 

But  this  was  the  last  paroxysm  of  a  fever  that 
was  burnt  out.  The  market  was  glutted  with  Illi- 
nois bonds ;  one  banker  and  one  broker  after 
another,  to  whose  hands  they  had  been  recklessly 
confided  in  New  York  and  London,  failed,  or  made 
away  with  the  proceeds  of  sales.  The  system  had 
utterly  failed ;  there  was  nothing  to  do  but  repeal 
it,  stop  work  upon  the  visionary  roads,  and  en- 
deavor to  invent  some  means  of  paying  the 
enormous  debt.  This  work  taxed  the  energies  of 
the  Legislatui'e  in  1839,  and  for  some  years  after. 
It  was  a  dismal  and  disheartening  task.  Blue 
Monday  had  come  after  these  years  of  intoxication, 
and  a  crushing  debt  rested  upon  a  people  who 
had  been  deceiving  themselves  with  the  fallacy 
that  it  would  somehow  pay  itself  by  acts  of  the 
Legislature. 

Many   were  the  schemes  devised  for    meeting 


COLONEL    E.  D.   BAKER. 


THE  imm 
OF  m 


lliiM»»rn^r' 


t"    3    CKw^lA^ 


COLLAPSE  OF  THE  SYSTEM  161 

these  oppressive  obligations  without  unduly  taxing  chap.  ix. 
the  voters ;  one  of  them,  not  especially  wiser  than 
the  rest,  was  contributed  by  Mr.  Lincoln.  It  pro- 
vided for  the  issue  of  bonds  for  the  payment  of  the 
interest  due  by  the  State,  and  for  the  appropriation 
of  a  special  portion  of  State  taxes  to  meet  the 
obligations  thus  incurred.  He  supported  his  bill 
in  a  perfectly  characteristic  speech,  making  no 
effort  to  evade  his  share  of  the  responsibility  for 
the  crisis,  and  submitting  his  views  with  diffidence 
to  the  approval  of  the  Assembly.  His  plan  was 
not  adopted;  it  was  too  simple  and  straightfor- 
ward, even  if  it  had  any  other  merits,  to  meet  the 
approval  of  an  assembly  intent  only  upon  getting 
out  of  immediate  embarrassment  by  means  which 
might  save  them  future  trouble  on  the  stump. 
There  was  even  an  undercurrent  of  sentiment  in 
favor  of  repudiation.  But  the  payment  of  the 
interest  for  that  year  was  provided  for  by  an 
ingenious  expedient  which  shifted  upon  the  Fund 
Commissioners  the  responsibility  of  deciding  what 
portion  of  the  debt  was  legal,  and  how  much 
interest  was  therefore  to  be  paid.  Bonds  were  sold 
for  this  purpose  at  a  heavy  loss. 

This  session  of  the  Legislature  was  enlivened  by 
a  singular  contest  between  the  Whigs  and  Demo- 
crats in  relation  to  the  State  banks.  Their  suspen- 
sion of  specie  payments  had  been  legalized  up  to 
"  the  adjournment  of  the  next  session  of  the  Legis- 
lature." They  were  not  now  able  to  resume,  and  it 
was  held  by  the  Democrats  that  if  the  special  ses- 
sion adjourned  sine  die  the  charter  of  the  banks 
would  be  forfeited,  a  purpose  the  party  was  eager 
to  accomplish.  The  Whigs,  who  were  defending 
Vol.  L— 11 


162  ABKAHAM    LINCOLN 

Chap.  IX.  the  banks,  wished  to  prevent  the  adjournment  of 
the  special  session  until  the  regular  session  should 
begin,  during  the  course  of  which  they  expected  to 
renew  the  lease  of  life  now  held  under  sufferance 
by  the  banks  —  in  which,  it  may  be  here  said,  they 
were  finally  successful.  But  on  one  occasion,  being 
in  the  minority,  and  having  exhausted  every  other 
parliamentary  means  of  opposition  and  delay,  and 
seeing  the  vote  they  dreaded  imminent,  they  tried 
to  defeat  it  by  leaving  the  house  in  a  body,  and, 
the  doors  being  locked,  a  number  of  them,  among 
whom  Mr.  Lincoln's  tall  figure  was  prominent, 
jumped  from  the  windows  of  the  church  where 
the  Legislature  was  then  holding  its  sessions.  "  I 
think,"  says  Mr.  Joseph  Gillespie,  who  was  one  of 
those  who  performed  this  feat  of  acrobatic  politics, 
"  Mr.  Lincoln  always  regi'etted  it,  as  he  deprecated 
everything  that  savored  of  the  revolutionary." 

Two  years  later  the  persecuted  banks,  harried  by 
the  demagogues  and  swindled  by  the  State,  fell 
with  a  great  ruin,  and  the  financial  misery  of  the 
State  was  complete.  Nothing  was  left  of  the  brill- 
iant schemes  of  the  historic  Legislature  of  1836 
but  a  load  of  debt  which  crippled  for  many  years 
the  energies  of  the  people,  a  few  miles  of  embank- 
ments which  the  grass  hastened  to  cover,  and  a 
few  abutments  which  stood  for  years  by  the  sides 
of  leafy  rivers,  waiting  for  their  long  delaying 
bridges  and  trains. 

During  the  winter  of  1840-1  occurred  the  fiirst 
clash  of  opinion  and  principle  between  Mr.  Lincoln 
and  his  life-long  adversary,  Mr.  Douglas.  There 
are  those  who  can  see  only  envy  and  jealousy  in 
that  strong  dislike  and  disapproval  with  which  Mr. 


COLLAPSE  OF  THE  SYSTEM  163 

Lincoln  always  regarded  his  famous  rival.  But  chap.ix. 
we  think  that  few  men  have  ever  lived  who  were 
more  free  from  those  degrading  passions  than 
Abraham  Lincoln,  and  the  personal  reprobation 
with  which  he  always  visited  the  public  acts  of 
Douglas  arose  from  his  sincere  conviction  that, 
able  as  Douglas  was,  and  in  many  respects  admi- 
rable in  character,  he  was  essentially  without  fixed 
political  morals.  They  had  met  for  the  first  time 
in  1834  at  Vandalia,  where  Douglas  was  busy  in 
getting  the  circuit  attorneyship  away  from  John 
J.  Hardin.  He  held  it  only  long  enough  to  secure 
a  nomination  to  the  Legislature  in  1836.  He  went 
there  to  endeavor  to  have  the  capital  moved  to 
Jacksonville,  where  he  lived,  but  he  gave  up  the 
fight  for  the  purpose  of  having  himself  appointed 
Register  of  the  Land  Office  at  Springfield.  He  held 
this  place  as  a  means  of  being  nominated  for  Con- 
gress the  next  year;  he  was  nominated  and  defeated. 
In  1840  he  was  engaged  in  another  scheme  to 
which  we  will  give  a  moment's  attention,  as  it 
resulted  in  giving  him  a  seat  on  the  Supreme 
Bench  of  the  State,  which  he  used  merely  as  a 
perch  from  which  to  get  into  Congress. 

There  had  been  a  difference  of  opinion  in  Illinois 
for  some  years  as  to  whether  the  Constitution, 
which  made  voters  of  all  white  male  inhabitants 
of  six  months'  residence,  meant  to  include  aliens 
in  that  category.  As  the  aliens  were  nearly  all 
Democrats,  that  party  insisted  on  theu*  voting, 
and  the  Whigs  objected.  The  best  lawyers  in  the 
State  were  Whigs,  and  so  it  happened  that  most  of 
the  judges  were  of  that  complexion.  A  case  was 
made  up  for  decision  and  decided  adversely  to  the 


164  ABKAHAM    LINCOLN 

Chap.  IX.  aliens,  who  appealed  it  to  the  Supreme  Court. 
This  case  was  to  come  on  at  the  June  term  in  1840, 
and  the  Democratic  counsel,  chief  among  whom 
was  Mr.  Douglas,  were  in  some  anxiety,  as  an  un- 
favorable decision  would  lose  them  about  ten  thou- 
sand alien  votes  in  the  Presidential  election  in 
November.  In  this  conjuncture  one  Judge  Smith, 
of  the  Supreme  Court,  an  ardent  Democrat,  willing 
to  enhance  his  value  in  his  party,  communicated 
to  Mr.  Douglas  two  important  facts :  first,  that  a 
majority  of  the  court  would  certainly  decide  agaiDst 
the  aliens ;  and,  secondly,  that  there  was  a  slight 
imperfection  in  the  record  by  which  counsel  might 
throw  the  case  over  to  the  December  term,  and 
save  the  alien  vote  for  Van  Buren  and  the  Demo- 
cratic ticket.  This  was  done,  and  when  the  Legisla- 
ture came  together  with  its  large  Democratic  major- 
ity, Mr.  Douglas  handed  in  a  bill  "  reforming"  the 
Judiciary  —  for  they  had  learned  that  serviceable 
word  already.  The  circuit  judges  were  turned  out 
of  office,  and  five  new  judges  were  added  to  the 
Supreme  Court,  who  were  to  perform  circuit  duty 
also.  It  is  needless  to  say  that  Judge  Douglas  was 
one  of  these,  and  he  had  contrived  also  in  the 
course  of  the  discussion  to  disgrace  his  friend 
Smith  so  thoroughly  by  quoting  his  treacherous 
communication  of  matters  which  took  place  within 
the  court,  that  Smith  was  no  longer  a  possible 
rival  for  political  honors. 

It  was  useless  for  the  Whigs  to  try  to  prevent 
this  degradation  of  the  bench.  There  was  no 
resource  but  a  protest,  and  here  again  Lincoln 
uttered  the  voice  of  the  conscience  of  the  party. 
He  was  joined  on  this   occasion  by  Edward  D. 


COLLAPSE    OF    THE    SYSTEM 


165 


Baker  ^  and  some  others,  who  protested  against  the    chap.ix, 
act  because 

1st.  It  violates  the  principles  of  free  government  by 
subjecting  the  Judiciary  to  the  Legislature. 

2d.  It  is  a  fatal  blow  at  the  independence  of  the 
judges  and  the  constitutional  term  of  their  offices. 

3d.  It  is  a  measure  not  asked  for  or  wished  for  by  the 
people. 

4th.  It  will  greatly  increase  the  expense  of  our  courts 
or  else  greatly  diminish  their  utility. 

5th,  It  will  give  our  courts  a  political  and  partisan 
character,  thereby  impairing  public  confidence  in  their 
decisions. 

6th.  It  will  impair  our  standing  with  other  States  and 
the  world. 

7th.  It  is  a  party  measure  for  party  purposes  from 
which  no  practical  good  to  the  people  can  possibly  arise, 
but  which  may  be  the  source  of  immeasurable  evils. 

The  undersigned  are  well  aware  that  this  protest  will 
be  altogether  unavailing  with  the  majority  of  this  body. 
The  blow  has  aheady  fallen;  and  we  are  compelled  to 
stand  by,  the  mournful  spectators  of  the  ruin  it  will  cause. 

It  will  be  easy  to  ridicule  this  indignant  protest 
as  the  angry  outcry  of  beaten  partisans ;  but  for- 
tunately we  have  evidence  which  cannot  be  gain- 
said of  the  justice  of  its  sentiments  and  the  wisdom 
of  its  predictions.  Governor  Ford,  himself  a  Dem- 
ocratic leader  as  able  as  he  was  honest,  writing 
seven  years  after  these  proceedings,  condemns 
them  as  wrong  and  impolitic,  and  adds,  "Ever 
since  this  reforming  measure  the  Judiciary  has 
been  unpopular  with  the  Democratic  majorities. 
Many  and  most  of  the  judges  have  had  great 


Ford's 

"History," 

p.  221. 


1  Afterwards  senator  from  Ore-    Pennsylvania  (called  the  1st  Cali- 
gon,  and  as  colonel  of  the  71st    fornia)  killed  at  Ball's  Bluff. 


166  ABKAHAM    LINCOLN 

Chap.  IX.  personal  popularity  —  so  much  so  as  to  create 
complaint  of  so  many  of  them  being  elected  or 
appointed  to  other  offices.  But  the  Bench  itself 
has  been  the  subject  of  bitter  attacks  by  every 
Legislature  since."  It  had  been  soiled  by  unclean 
contact  and  could  not  be  respected  as  before. 


CHAPTER    X 


EARLY    LAW    PRACTICE 


DURING  all  the  years  of  his  service  in  the  chap.  x. 
Legislature,  Lincoln  was  practicing  law  in 
Springfield  in  the  dingy  little  office  at  the  corner  of 
the  square.  A  youth  named  Milton  Hay,  who 
afterwards  became  one  of  the  foremost  lawyers  of 
the  State,  had  made  the  acquaintance  of  Lincoln  at 
the  County  Clerk's  office  and  proposed  to  study  law 
with  him.  He  was  at  once  accepted  as  a  pupil, 
and  his  days  being  otherwise  employed  he  gave  his 
nights  to  reading,  and  as  his  vigils  were  apt  to  be 
prolonged  he  furnished  a  bedroom  adjoining  the 
office,  where  Lincoln  often  passed  the  night  with 
him.  Mr.  Hay  gives  this  account  of  the  practice 
of  the  law  in  those  days  : 

"  In  forming  our  ideas  of  Lincoln's  growth  and 
development  as  a  lawyer,  we  must  remember  that 
in  those  early  days  litigation  was  very  simple  as 
compared  with  that  of  modern  times.  Population 
was  sparse  and  society  scarcely  organized,  land 
was  plentiful  and  employment  abundant.  There 
was  an  utter  absence  of  the  abstruse  questions  and 
complications  which  now  beset  the  law.  There 
was  no  need  of  that  close  and  searching  study  into 
principles  and  precedents  which  keeps  the  modern 

167 


168 


ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 


Chap.  X.  law-studeiitburied 
in  his  office.  On 
the  contrary,  the 
very  character  of 
this  simple  litiga- 
tion drew  the  law- 
yer into  the  street 
and  neighborhood, 

and  into  close  and  .inS 

MM 

active  intercourse 
with  all  classes  of 
his  fellow-men. 
The  suits  consisted 
of  actions  of  tort 
and  assumpsit.  K 
a  man  had  a  debt 
not  collectible,  the 
current  phrase 
was,  'I'll  take  it 


LINCOLN  AND  STUART'S  LAW-OFFICE, 
SPRINGFIELD. 


out  of  his  hide.' 

"  This  would  bring  on  an  action  for  assault  and 
battery.  The  free  comments  of  the  neighbors 
on  the  fracas  or  the  character  of  the  parties 
would  be  productive  of  slander  suits.  A  man 
would  for  his  convenience  lay  down  an  iras- 
cible neighbor's  fence,  and  indolently  forget  to 
put  it  up  again,  and  an  action  of  trespass  would 
grow  out  of  it.  The  suit  would  lead  to  a  free 
fight,  and  sometimes  furnish  the  bloody  incidents 
for  a  murder  trial.  Occupied  with  this  class  of 
business,  the  half -legal,  half -political  lawyers  were 
never  found  plodding  in  their  offices.  In  that 
case  they  would  have  waited  long  for  the  recog- 
nition  of   their   talents   or   a   demand   for   their 


EAELY    LAW    PRACTICE  169 

services.  Out  of  this  characteristic  of  the  times  chap.  x. 
also  grew  the  street  discussions  I  have  adverted  to. 
There  was  scarcely  a  day  or  hour  when  a  knot  of 
men  might  not  have  been  seen  near  the  door  of 
some  prominent  store,  or  about  the  steps  of  the 
court-house  eagerly  discussing  a  current  political 
topic  —  not  as  a  question  of  news,  for  news  was  not 
then  received  quickly  or  frequently,  as  it  is  now, 
but  rather  for  the  sake  of  debate  ;  and  the  men  from 
the  country,  the  pioneers  and  farmers,  always 
gathered  eagerly  about  these  groups  and  listened 
with  open-mouthed  interest,  and  frequently  mani- 
fested their  approval  or  dissent  in  strong  words, 
and  carried  away  to  their  neighborhoods  a  report 
of  the  debaters'  wit  and  skill.  It  was  in  these 
street  talks  that  the  rising  and  aspiring  young 
lawyer  found  his  daily  and  hourly  forum.  Often 
by  good  luck  or  prudence  he  had  the  field  entirely 
to  himself,  and  so  escaped  the  dangers  and  dis- 
couragements of  a  decisive  conflict  wdth  a  trained 
antagonist." 

Mr.  Stuart  was  either  in  Congress  or  actively 
engaged  in  canvassing  his  district  a  great  part 
of  the  time  that  his  partnership  with  Lincoln 
continued,  so  that  the  young  lawyer  was  thrown 
a  good  deal  on  his  own  resources  for  occupation. 
There  was  not  enough  business  to  fill  up  all  his 
hours,  and  he  was  not  at  that  time  a  close  student, 
so  that  he  soon  became  as  famous  for  his  racy  talk 
and  good-fellowship  at  all  the  usual  lounging- 
places  in  Springfield  as  he  had  ever  been  in  New 
Salem.  Mr.  Hay  says,  speaking  of  the  youths  who 
made  the  County  Clerk's  office  their  place  of  rendez- 
vous, "  It  was  always  a  great  treat  when  Lincoln  got 


LINCOLN'S  BOOKCASE  AND  INKSTAND. 


170 


EARLY    LAW    PRACTICE  171 

amongst  us.  We  were  sure  to  have  some  of  those  chap.  x. 
stories  for  which  he  aheady  had  a  reputation,  and 
there  was  this  peculiarity  about  them,  that  they 
were  not  only  entertaining  in  themselves,  but 
always  singularly  illustrative  of  some  point  he 
wanted  to  make."  After  Mr.  Hay  entered  his  office, 
and  was  busily  engaged  with  his  briefs  and  decla- 
rations, the  course  of  their  labors  was  often  broken 
by  the  older  man's  wise  and  witty  digressions. 
Once  an  interruption  occurred  which  affords  an  odd 
illustration  of  the  character  of  discussion  then 
prevalent.  We  will  give  it  in  Mr.  Hay's  words: 
"  The  custom  of  public  political  debate,  while  it 
was  sharp  and  acrimonious,  also  engendered  a 
spirit  of  equality  and  fairness.  Every  political 
meeting  was  a  free  fight  open  to  every  one  who  had 
talent  and  spirit,  no  matter  to  which  party  the 
speaker  belonged.  These  discussions  used  often  to 
be  held  in  the  court-room,  just  under  our  office,  and 
through  a  trap-door,  made  there  when  the  building 
was  used  for  a  store-house,  we  could  hear  every- 
thing that  was  said  in  the  hall  below.  One  night 
there  was  a  discussion  in  which  E.  D.  Baker  took 
part.  He  was  a  fiery  fellow,  and  when  his  impul- 
siveness was  let  loose  among  the  rough  element  that 
composed  his  audience  there  was  a  fair  prospect  of 
trouble  at  any  moment.  Lincoln  was  lying  on  the 
bed,  apparently  paying  no  attention  to  what  was 
going  on.  Lamborn  was  talking,  and  we  suddenly 
heard  Baker  interrupting  him  with  a  sharp  remark, 
then  a  rustling  and  uproar.  Lincoln  jumped  from 
the  bed  and  down  the  trap,  lighting  on  the  platform 
between  Baker  and  the  audience,  and  quieted  the 
tumult  as  much  by  the  surprise  of  his  sudden 


172  ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

Chap.  X.  apparition  as  by  his  good-natured  and  reasonable 
words." 

He  was  often  unfaithful  to  his  Quaker  traditions 
in  those  days  of  his  youth.  Those  who  witnessed 
Ms  wonderful  forbearance  and  self-restraint  in 
later  manhood  would  find  it  difficult  to  believe 
how  promptly  and  with  what  pleasure  he  used  to 
resort  to  measures  of  repression  against  a  bully  or 
brawler.  On  the  day  of  election  in  1840,  word 
came  to  him  that  one  Radford,  a  Democratic  con- 
tractor, had  taken  possession  of  one  of  the  polling- 
places  with  his  workmen,  and  was  preventing  the 
Whigs  from  voting.  Lincoln  started  off  at  a  gait 
which  showed  his  interest  in  the  matter  in  hand. 
He  went  up  to  Radford  and  persuaded  him  to 
leave  the  polls  without  a  moment's  delay.  One  of 
his  candid  remarks  is  remembered  and  recorded: 
"  Radford !  you  '11  spoil  and  blow,  if  you  live  much 
longer."  Radford's  prudence  prevented  an  actual 
collision,  which,  it  must  be  confessed,  Lincoln 
regretted.  He  told  his  friend  Speed  he  wanted 
Radford  to  show  fight  so  that  he  might  "  knock 
pS'     him  down  and  leave  him  kicking." 

Early  in  the  year  1840  it  seemed  possible  that 
the  Whigs  might  elect  General  Harrison  to  the 
Presidency,  and  this  hope  lent  added  energy  to  the 
party  even  in  the  States  where  the  majority  was 
so  strongly  against  them  as  in  Illinois.  Lincoln 
was  nominated  for  Presidential  Elector  and  threw 
himself  with  ardor  into  the  canvass,  traversing  a 
great  part  of  the  State  and  speaking  with  remark- 
able effect.  Only  one  of  the  speeches  he  made 
during  the  year  has  been  preserved  entire:  this 
was  an  address  delivered  in  Springfield  as  one  of  a 


EARLY    LAW    PRACTICE  173 

series — a  sort  of  oratorical  tournament  partici-  chap.  x. 
pated  in  by  Douglas,  Calhoun,  Lamborn,  and 
Thomas  on  the  part  of  the  Democrats,  and  Logan, 
Baker,  Browning,  and  Lincoln  on  the  part  of  the 
Whigs.  The  discussion  began  with  great  enthu- 
siasm and  with  crowded  houses,  but  by  the  time 
it  came  to  Lincoln's  duty  to  close  the  debate  the 
fickle  public  had  tired  of  the  intellectual  jousts, 
and  he  spoke  to  a  comparatively  thin  house.  But 
his  speech  was  considered  the  best  of  the  series, 
and  there  was  such  a  demand  for  it  that  he  wrote 
it  out,  and  it  was  printed  and  circulated  in  the 
spring  as  a  campaign  document. 

It  was  a  remarkable  speech  in  many  respects  — 
and  in  none  more  than  in  this,  that  it  represented 
the  highest  expression  of  what  might  be  called  his 
"  first  manner."  It  was  the  most  important  and  the 
last  speech  of  its  class  which  he  ever  delivered  — 
not  destitute  of  sound  and  close  reasoning,  yet 
filled  with  boisterous  fun  and  florid  rhetoric.  It 
was,  in  short,  a  rattling  stump  speech  of  the  kind 
then  universally  popular  in  the  West,  and  which  is 
still  considered  a  very  high  grade  of  eloquence 
in  the  South.  But  it  is  of  no  kindred  with  his 
inaugural  addresses,  and  resembles  the  Grettysburg 
speech  no  more  than  "  The  Comedy  of  Errors " 
resembles  "Hamlet."  One  or  two  extracts  will 
give  some  idea  of  its  humorous  satire  and  its  lurid 
fervor.  Attacking  the  corruptions  and  defalca- 
tions of  the  Administration  party  he  said :  "  Mr. 
Lamborn  insists  that  the  difference  between  the  Van 
Buren  party  and  the  Whigs  is  that,  although  the 
former  sometimes  err  in  practice  they  are  always 
correct  in  principle,  whereas  the  latter  are  wrong 


"''^ni^y^ 


GLOBE  TAVERN,  SPRINGFIELD,  WHERE  LINCOLN  LIVED  AFTER  HIS 

MARRIAGE. 


174 


EARLY    LAW    PEACTICE  175 

in  principle  ;  and  the  better  to  impress  this  propo-  chap.  x. 
sition  he  uses  a  figurative  expression  in  these 
words,  '  The  Democrats  are  vulnerable  in  the  heel, 
but  they  are  sound  in  the  heart  and  head.'  The 
first  branch  of  the  figure  —  that  is,  the  Democrats 
are  vulnerable  in  the  heel  —  I  admit  is  not  merely 
figuratively  but  literally  true.  Who  that  looks 
but  for  a  moment  at  their  Swartwouts,  their 
Prices,  their  Harringtons,  and  their  hundreds  of 
others  scampering  away  with  the  public  money  to 
Texas,  to  Europe,  and  to  every  spot  of  the  earth 
where  a  villain  may  hope  to  find  refuge  from  jus- 
tice, can  at  all  doubt  that  they  are  most  distress- 
ingly affected  in  their  heels  with  a  species  of 
running  itch  ?  It  seems  that  this  malady  of  their 
heels  operates  on  the  sound-headed  and  honest- 
hearted  creatures,  very  much  as  the  cork  leg  in  the 
comic  song  did  on  its  owner,  which,  when  he  once 
got  started  on  it,  the  more  he  tried  to  stop  it  the 
more  it  would  run  away.  At  the  hazard  of  wear- 
ing this  point  threadbare,  I  will  relate  an  anec- 
dote which  seems  to  be  too  strikingly  in  point 
to  be  omitted.  A  witty  Irish  soldier  who  was 
always  boasting  of  his  bravery  when  no  danger 
was  near,  but  who  invariably  retreated  without 
orders  at  the  first  charge  of  the  engagement,  being 
asked  by  his  captain  why  he  did  so,  replied,  '  Cap- 
tain, I  have  as  brave  a  heart  as  Julius  Caesar  ever 
had,  but  somehow  or  other  whenever  danger 
approaches,  mj^  cowardly  legs  will  run  away  with 
it.'  So  with  Mr.  Lamborn's  party  —  they  take  the 
public  money  into  their  hands  for  the  most  laud- 
able purpose  that  wise  heads  and  honest  hearts 
can  dictate ;  but  before  they  can  possibly  get  it 


176  ABKAHAM    LINCOLN 

Chap.  X.    out  again,  their  rascally  vulnerable  heels  will  run 
away  with  them." 

The  speech  concludes  with  these  swelling  words : 
"  Mr.  Lamborn  refers  to  the  late  elections  in  the 
States,  and  from  their  results  confidently  predicts 
every  State  in  the  Union  will  vote  for  Mr.  Van 
Buren  at  the  next  Presidential  election.  Address 
that  argument  to  cowards  and  slaves :  with  the 
free  and  the  brave  it  will  affect  nothing.  It  may 
be  true;  if  it  must,  let  it.  Many  free  countries 
have  lost  their  liberty,  and  ours  may  lose  hers ;  but 
if  she  shall,  be  it  my  proudest  plume,  not  that  I 
was  the  last  to  desert,  but  that  I  never  deserted 
her.  I  know  that  the  great  volcano  at  Washington, 
aroused  and  directed  by  the  evil  spirit  that  reigns 
there,  is  belching  forth  the  lava  of  political  corrup- 
tion in  a  current  broad  and  deep,  which  is  sweep- 
ing with  frightful  velocity  over  the  whole  length 
and  breadth  of  the  land,  bidding  fair  to  leave  un- 
scathed no  gi'een  spot  or  living  thing ;  while  on  its 
bosom  are  riding,  like  demons  on  the  wave  of  Hell, 
the  imps  of  the  Evil  Spirit,  and  fiendishly  taunting 
all  those  who  dare  to  resist  its  destroying  course 
with  the  hopelessness  of  their  efforts ;  and  know- 
ing this,  I  cannot  deny  that  all  may  be  swept 
away.  Broken  by  it  I,  too,  may  be;  bow  to  it,  I 
never  will.  The  probability  that  we  may  fall  in  the 
struggle  ought  not  to  deter  us  from  the  support  of 
a  cause  we  believe  to  be  just.  It  shall  not  deter 
me.  If  ever  I  feel  the  soul  within  me  elevate  and 
expand  to  those  dimensions  not  wholly  unworthy 
of  its  almighty  architect,  it  is  when  I  contemplate 
the  cause  of  my  country,  deserted  by  all  the  world 
beside,  and  I  standing  up  boldly  alone,   hurling 


WILLIAM    HENRY    HARRISON. 


EAELY   L.\W    PRACTICE  1 1  t 

defiance  at  her  victorious  oppressors.  Here,  with-  cnw.  x. 
out  coutemphitiug  consequences,  before  Heaven, 
and  in  face  of  the  world,  I  swear  eternal  fealty  to 
the  just  cause,  as  I  deem  it,  of  the  land  of  my  life, 
mv  libertv,  and  mv  love.  Ami  who  that  thinks 
with  me  will  not  fearlessly  adopt  that  oath  that  I 
take!  Let  none  falter  who  thinks  he  is  right,  and 
we  may  succeed.  But  if  after  all  we  should  fail, 
be  it  so.  We  still  shall  have  the  proud  consolation 
of  sajdng  to  our  consciences,  and  to  the  departed 
shade  of  our  country's  freedom,  that  the  cause 
approved  of  our  judgment,  and  adored  of  our 
hearts,  in  disaster,  in  chains,  in  torture,  in  death, 
we  never  faltered  in  defending." 

These  perfervid  and  musical  metaphors  of  devo- 
tion and  defiance  have  often  been  quoted  as  Mr.  l.in- 
coln's  heroic  challenge  to  the  slave  power,  and 
Bishop  Simpson  gave  them  that  lofty  significance 
in  his  funeral  oration.  But  they  were  simply  the 
utterances  of  a  young  and  ardent  Whig,  earnestly 
advocating  the  election  of  "old  Tippecanoe"  and 
not  unwilHng,  while  doing  this,  to  show  the  people 
of  the  capital  a  specimen  of  his  olo(pienc(\  The 
whole  campaign  was  carritnl  o\\  in  a  tone  some- 
what shrill.  The  AVhigs  were  recovering  from  the 
numbness  into  which  thev  had  fallen  during  the 
time  of  Jackson's  imperious  predominance,  and  in 
the  now  prospect  of  success  they  felt  all  the  (Excite- 
ment of  prosperous  rebels.  The  taunts  of  the 
party  in  power,  -when  Harrison's  nomination  was 
first  mentioned,  their  sneers  at  "  liard  cider  "  and 
"  log-cabins,"  had  been  dexterously  adopted  as  tlie 
slogan  of  the  opposition,  and  gave  rise  to  the  dis- 
tinguishing features  of  that  extraordinary  cam- 
VoL.  I.— 12 


178 


ABEAHAM    LINCOLN 


Chap.  X. 


paign.  Log-cabins  were  built  in  every  "Western 
county,  tuns  of  hard  cider  were  filled  and  emptied 
at  all  the  Whig  mass  meetings ;  and  as  the  canvass 
gained  momentum  and  vehemence  a  curious  kind 
of  music  added  its  inspiration  to  the  cause;  and 
after  the  Maine  election  was  over,  with  its  augury 
of  triumph,  every  Whig  who  was  able  to  sing,  or 
even  to  make  a  joyful  noise,  was  roaring  the 
inquiry,  "  Oh,  have  you  heard  how  old  Maine 
went?"  and  the  profane  but  powerfully  accented 
response,  "  She  went,  hell-bent,  for  Grovernor  Kent, 
and  Tippecanoe,  and  Tyler  too." 

It  was  one  of  the  busiest  and  most  enjoyable 
seasons  of  Lincoln's  life.  He  had  grown  by  this 
time  thoroughly  at  home  in  political  controversy, 
and  he  had  the  pleasure  of  frequently  meeting  Mr. 
Douglas  in  rough-and-tumble  debate  in  various 
towns  of  the  State  as  they  followed  Judge  Treat 
on  his  circuit.  If  we  may  trust  the  wilhng  testi- 
mony of  his  old  associates,  Lincoln  had  no  diffi- 
culty in  holding  his  own  against  his  adroit 
antagonist,  and  it  was  even  thought  that  the 
recollection  of  his  ill  success  in  these  encounters 
was  not  without  its  influence  in  inducing  Douglas 
and  his  followers,  defeated  in  the  nation,  though 
victorious  in  the  State,  to  wreak  their  vengeance  on 
the  Illinois  Supreme  Court. 

In  Lincoln's  letters  to  Major  Stuart,  then  in 
Washington,  we  see  how  strongly  the  subject  of 
politics  overshadows  all  others  in  his  mind.  Under 
Major  date  of  November  14,  1839,  he  wrote :  "  I  have 
possesBion.  bceu  to  the  Secretary's  office  within  the  last  hour, 
and  find  things  precisely  as  you  left  them ;  no  new 
arrivals  of  returns  on  either  side.    Douglas  has  not 


Copied 

from  the 

MS.  in 


EAELY    LAW    PRACTICE 


179 


been  here  since  you  left.  A  report  is  in  circulation 
here  now  that  he  has  abandoned  the  idea  of  going 
to  Washington;  but  the  report  does  not  come  in 
very  authentic  form  so  far  as  I  can  learn.  Though, 
speaking  of  authenticity,  you  know  that  if  we  had 
heard  Douglas  say  that  he  had  abandoned  the  con- 
test, it  would  not  be  very  authentic.  There  is  no 
news  here.  Noah,  I  still  think,  will  be  elected  very 
easily.  I  am  afraid  of  our  race  for  representative. 
Dr.  Knapp  has  become  a  candidate ;  and  I  fear 
the  few  votes  he  will  get  will  be  taken  from  us. 
Also  some  one  has  been  tampering  with  old  squire 
Wyckoff,  and  induced  him  to  send  in  his  name  to 
be  announced  as  a  candidate.  Francis  refused  to 
announce  him  without  seeing  him,  and  now  I  sup- 
pose there  is  to  be  a  fuss  about  it.  I  have  been  so 
busy  that  I  have  not  seen  Mrs.  Stuart  since  you 
left,  though  I  understand  she  wrote  you  by 
to-day's  mail,  which  will  inform  you  more  about 
her  than  I  could.  The  very  moment  a  speaker  is 
elected,  write  me  who  he  is.  Your  friend,  as 
ever." 

Again  he  wrote,  on  New  Year's  Day,  1840,  a  let- 
ter curiously  destitute  of  any  festal  suggestions: 
"  There  is  a  considerable  disposition  on  the  part  of 
both  parties  in  the  Legislature  to  reinstate  the  law 
bringing  on  the  Congressional  elections  next  sum- 
mer. What  motive  for  this  the  Locos  have,  I  can- 
not tell.  The  Whigs  say  that  the  canal  and  other 
public  works  will  stop,  and  consequently  we  shall 
then  be  clear  of  the  foreign  votes,  whereas  by 
another  year  they  may  be  brought  in  again.  The 
Whigs  of  our  district  say  that  everything  is  in 
favor  of  holding  the  election  next  summer,  except 


Chap.  X. 


Noah  W. 

Matheny, 

County 

Clerk. 


180  ABKAHAM    LINCOLN 

Chap.  X.  the  fact  of  your  absence ;  and  several  of  them  have 
requested  me  to  ask  your  opinion  on  the  matter. 
Write  me  immediately  what  you  think  of  it. 

"On  the  other  side  of  this  sheet  I  send  you  a 
copy  of  my  Land  Resolutions,  which  passed  both 
branches  of  our  Legislature  last  winter.  Will  you 
show  them  to  Mr.  Calhoun,  informing  him  of  the 
fact  of  their  passage  through  our  Legislature  ?  Mr. 
Calhoun  suggested  a  similar  proposition  last  win- 
ter; and  perhaps  if  he  finds  himself  backed  by  one 
of  the  States  he  may  be  induced  to  take  it  up 
again." 

After  the  session  opened,  January  20,  he  wrote 
to  Mr.  Stuart,  accurately  outlining  the  work  of  the 
winter :  "  The  following  is  my  guess  as  to  what 
will  be  done.  The  Internal  Improvement  System 
will  be  put  down  in  a  lump  without  benefit  of 
clergy.  The  Bank  will  be  resuscitated  with  some 
trifling  modifications." 

State  affairs  have  evidently  lost  their  interest, 
however,  and  his  soul  is  in  arms  for  the  wider  fray. 
"  Be  sure  to  send  me  as  many  copies  of  the  Life  of 
Harrison  as  you  can  spare.  Be  very  sure  to  send 
me  the  Senate  Journal  of  New  York  for  September, 
1814," — he  had  seen  in  a  newspaper  a  charge  of  dis- 
loyalty made  against  Mr.  Van  Buren  during  the  war 
with  Grreat  Britain,  but,  as  usual,  wanted  to  be  sure 
of  his  facts, —  "  and  in  general,"  he  adds,  "  send  me 
everything  you  think  wiU  be  a  good  war-club. 
The  nomination  of  Harrison  takes  first-rate.  You 
know  I  am  never  sanguine ;  but  I  believe  we  will 
carry  the  State.  The  chance  for  doing  so  appears 
to  me  twenty-five  per  cent,  better  than  it  did 
for  you  to  beat  Douglas.    A  great  many  of  the 


EARLY    LAW    PRACTICE  181 

grocery  sort  of  Van  Buren  men  are  out  for  Harrison,  chap.  x. 
Our  Irish  blacksmith  Gregory  is  for  Harrison.  .  .  . 
You  have  heard  that  the  Whigs  and  Locos  had  a 
pohtical  discussion  shortly  after  the  meeting  of  the 
Legislature.  Well,  I  made  a  big  speech  which  is 
in  progress  of  printing  in  pamphlet  form.  To  en- 
lighten you  and  the  rest  of  the  world,  I  shall  send 
you  a  copy  when  it  is  finished."  The  "  big  speech  " 
was  the  one  from  which  we  have  just  quoted. 

The  sanguine  mood  continued  in  his  next  letter, 
March  1 :  "I  have  never  seen  the  prospects  of 
our  party  so  bright  in  these  parts  as  they  are  now. 
We  shall  carry  this  county  by  a  larger  majority 
than  we  did  in  1836  when  you  ran  against  May. 
I  do  not  think  my  prospects  individually  are  very 
flattering,  for  I  think  it  probable  I  shall  not  be 
permitted  to  be  a  candidate;  but  the  party  ticket 
will  succeed  triumphantly.  Subscriptions  to  the 
*  Old  Soldier '  pour  in  without  abatement.  This 
morning  I  took  from  the  post-office  a  letter  from 
Dubois,  inclosing  the  names  of  sixty  subscribers, 
and  on  carrying  it  to  Francis  [Simeon  Francis, 
editor  of  the  '  Sangamo  Jom-nal ']  I  found  he  had 
received  one  hundred  and  forty  more  from  other 
quarters  by  the  same  day's  mail.  .  .  .  Yesterday 
Douglas,  having  chosen  to  consider  himself  insulted 
by  something  in  the  '  Journal,'  undertook  to  cane 
Francis  in  the  street.  Francis  caught  him  by  the 
hair  and  jammed  him  back  against  a  market-cait, 
where  the  matter  ended  by  Francis  being  pulled 
away  from  him.  The  whole  affair  was  so  ludicrous 
that  Francis  and  everybody  else,  Douglas  excepted, 
have  been  laughing  about  it  ever  since." 

Douglas  seems  to  have  had  a  great  propensity  to 


182  ABEAHAM    LINCOLN 

Chap.  X.  such  rencontres,  of  which  the  issue  was  ordinarily 
his  complete  discomfiture,  as  he  had  the  untoward 
habit  of  attacking  much  bigger  and  stronger  men 
than  himself.  He  weighed  at  that  time  little,  if 
anything,  over  a  hundred  pounds,  yet  his  heart  was 
so  valiant  that  he  made  nothing  of  assaulting  men  of 
ponderous  flesh  like  Francis,  or  of  great  height  and 
strength  like  Stuart.  He  sought  a  quarrel  with  the 
latter,  during  their  canvass  in  1838,  in  a  grocery, 
with  the  usual  result.  A  bystander  who  re- 
members the  incident  says  that  Stuart  "jest 
mopped  the  floor  with  him."  In  the  same  letter 
Mr.  Lincoln  gives  a  long  list  of  names  to  which  he 
wants  documents  to  be  sent.  It  shows  a  remark- 
able personal  acquaintance  with  the  minutest  needs 
of  the  canvass :  this  one  is  a  doubtful  Whig ;  that 
one  is  an  inquiring  Democrat ;  that  other  a  zealous 
young  feUow  who  would  be  pleased  by  the  atten- 
tion ;  three  brothers  are  mentioned  who  "  fell  out 
with  us  about  Early  and  are  doubtful  now " ;  and 
finally  he  tells  Stuart  that  Joe  Smith  is  an  admirer 
of  his,  and  that  a  few  documents  had  better  be 
mailed  to  the  Mormons ;  and  he  must  be  sure,  the 
next  time  he  writes,  to  send  Evan  Butler  his  com- 
pliments. 

It  would  be  strange,  indeed,  if  such  a  politician 
as  this  were  slighted  by  his  constituents,  and  in 
his  next  letter  we  find  how  groundless  were  his 
forebodings  in  that  direction.  The  convention 
had  been  held;  the  rural  delegates  took  all  the 
nominations  away  from  Springfield  except  two, 
Baker  for  the  Senate,  and  Lincoln  for  the  House 
.  of  Representatives.  "Mnian,"  he  says,  meaning 
Ninian  W.  Edwards,  "  was  very  much  hui't  at  not 


EAELY    LAW    PEACTICE  183 

being  nominated,  but  he  has  become  tolerably  well  chap.  x. 
reconciled.  I  was  much,  very  much,  wounded  my- 
self, at  his  being  left  out.  The  fact  is,  the  country 
delegates  made  the  nominations  as  they  pleased,  and 
they  pleased  to  make  them  all  from  the  country, 
except  Baker  and  me,  whom  they  supposed  neces- 
sary to  make  stump  speeches.  Old  Colonel  Elkin 
is  nominated  for  Sheriff  —  that  's  right." 

Harrison  was  elected  in  November,  and  the  great 
preoccupation  of  most  of  the  Whigs  was,  of  course, 
the  distribution  of  the  offices  which  they  felt 
belonged  to  them  as  the  spoils  of  battle.  This 
demoralizing  doctrine  had  been  promulgated  by 
Jackson,  and  acted  upon  for  so  many  years  that  it 
was  too  much  to  expect  of  human  nature  that  the 
Whigs  should  not  adopt  it,  partially  at  least,  when 
their  turn  came.  But  we  are  left  in  no  doubt  as  to 
the  way  in  which  Lincoln  regarded  the  unseemly 
scramble.  It  is  probable  that  he  was  asked  to 
express  his  preference  among  applicants,  and  he 
wrote  under  date  of  December  17 :  "  This  affair  of 
appointments  to  office  is  very  annoying  —  more  so 
to  you  than  to  me  doubtless.  I  am,  as  you  know, 
opposed  to  removals  to  make  places  for  our  friends. 
Bearing  this  in  mind,  I  express  my  preference  in 
a  few  cases,  as  follows:  for  Marshal,  first,  John 
Dawson,  second,  B.  F.  Edwards;  for  postmaster 
here,  Dr.  Henry ;  at  Carlinville,  Joseph  C.  Howell." 

The  mention  of  this  last  post-office  rouses  his 
righteous  indignation,  and  he  calls  for  justice  upon 
a  wrong-doer.  "  There  is  no  question  of  the  pro- 
priety of  removing  the  postmaster  at  Carlinville. 
I  have  been  told  by  so  many  different  persons  as 
to  preclude  all  doubt  of  its  truth,  that  he  boldly 


184  ABKAHAM    LINCOLN 

Chap.  X.  refused  to  deliver  from  his  office  during  the  can- 
vass all  documents  franked  by  Whig  members 
of  Congress." 

Once  more,  on  the  23d  of  January,  1841,  he 
addresses  a  letter  to  Mr.  Stuart,  which  closes  the 
correspondence,  and  which  affords  a  glimpse  of 
that  strange  condition  of  melancholia  into  whose 
dark  shadow  he  was  then  entering,  and  which 
lasted,  with  only  occasional  intervals  of  healthy 
cheerfulness,  to  the  time  of  his  marriage.  We  give 
this  remarkable  letter  entire,  from  the  manuscript 
submitted  to  us  by  the  late  John  T.  Stuart: 

Dear  Stuart:  Yours  of  the  3d  instant  is  received, 
and  I  proceed  to  answer  it  as  well  as  I  can,  though  from 
the  deplorable  state  of  my  mind  at  this  time  I  fear  I 
shall  give  you  but  httle  satisfaction.  About  the  matter 
of  the  Congressional  election,  I  can  only  tell  you  that 
there  is  a  bill  now  before  the  Senate  adopting  the  general 
ticket  system ;  but  whether  the  party  have  fully  deter- 
mined on  its  adoption  is  yet  uncertain.  There  is  no  sign 
of  opposition  to  you  among  our  friends,  and  none  that  I 
can  learn  among  our  enemies;  though  of  course  there 
will  be  if  the  general  ticket  be  adopted.  The  Chicago 
"  American,"  Peoria  "  Register,"  and  Sangamo  "  Journal" 
have  already  hoisted  your  flag  upon  their  own  responsi- 
bihty ;  and  the  other  Whig  papers  of  the  district  are  ex- 
pected to  follow  immediately.  On  last  evening  there  was 
a  meeting  of  our  friends  at  Butler's,  and  I  submitted  the 
question  to  them  and  found  them  unanimously  in  favor 
of  having  you  announced  as  a  candidate.  A  few  of  us 
this  morning,  however,  concluded  that  as  you  were  already 
being  announced  in  the  papers  we  would  delay  announc- 
ing you,  as  by  your  authority,  for  a  week  or  two.  We 
thought  that  to  appear  too  keen  about  it  might  spur  our 
opponents  on  about  their  general  ticket  project.  Upon 
the  whole  I  think  I  may  say  with  certainty  that  your 
reelection  is  sure,  if  it  be  in  the  power  of  the  Whigs  to 
make  it  so. 


EARLY    LAW    PRACTICE  185 

For  not  giving  you  a  general  summary  of  news,  you  chap.  x. 
must  pardon  me ;  it  is  not  in  my  power  to  do  so.  I  am 
now  the  most  miserable  man  living.  If  what  I  feel  were 
equally  distributed  to  the  whole  human  family,  there 
would  not  be  one  cheerful  face  on  earth.  Whether  I 
shall  ever  be  better  I  cannot  tell ;  I  awfully  forebode  I 
shall  not.  To  remain  as  I  am  is  impossible  ;  I  must  die 
or  be  better,  it  appears  to  me.  The  matter  you  speak  of 
on  my  account  you  may  attend  to  as  you  say,  unless  you 
shall  hear  of  my  condition  forbidding  it.  I  say  this 
because  I  fear  I  shall  be  unable  to  attend  to  any  business 
here,  and  a  change  of  scene  might  help  me.  If  I  could 
be  myself,  I  would  rather  remain  at  home  with  Judge 
Logan.    I  can  write  no  more.    Your  friend  as  ever. 

A.  Lincoln. 


CHAPTER    XI 

MARRIAGE 

Chap.  XI.  HpHE  foregoing  letter  brings  us  to  the  considera- 
1840.  J-  tion  of  a  remarkable  passage  in  Lincoln's  life. 
It  has  been  the  cause  of  much  profane  and  idle 
discussion  among  those  who  were  constitutionally 
incapacitated  from  appreciating  ideal  sufferings, 
and  we  would  be  tempted  to  refrain  from  adding  a 
word  to  what  has  already  been  said  if  it  were  pos- 
sible to  omit  all  reference  to  an  experience  so  im- 
portant in  the  development  of  his  character. 

In  the  year  1840  he  became  engaged  to  be 
married  to  Miss  Mary  Todd,  of  Lexington,  Ken- 
tucky, a  young  lady  of  good  education  and  excel- 
lent connections,  who  was  visiting  her  sister,  Mrs. 
Ninian  W.  Edwards,  at  Springfield.^  The  engage- 
ment was  not  in  all  respects  a  happy  one,  as  both 

1  Mrs.  Lincoln  was  the  daugh-  killed  at  the  battle  of  the  Blue 

ter  of  the  Hon.  Robert  S.  Todd,  Licks,  in  1782.   His  brother  Levi 

of  Kentucky.      Her  great-uncle,  was  also  at  that  battle,  and  was 

John  Todd,  and  her  grandfather,  one  of  the  few  survivors  of  it. 

Levi  Todd,  accompanied  General  Colonel  John  Todd  was  one  of 

George  Rogers  Clark  to  Illinois,  the  original  proprietors  of   the 

and  were  present  at  the  capture  town  of  Lexington,  Ky.    While 

of  Kaskaskia  and  Vincennes.    In  encamped    on    the    site    of    the 

December,     1778,     John    Todd  present  city,  he    heard    of    the 

was  appointed  by  Patrick  Henry,  opening  battle  of  the  Revolution, 

Governor  of  Virginia,  to  be  lieu-  and  named  his  infant  settlement 

tenant  of  the  coimty  of  Illinois,  in  its  honor. —  Arnold's  "Life  of 

then  a  part  of  Virginia.     He  was  Lincoln,"  p.  68. 

186 


MAKRIAGE  187 

parties  doubted  their  compatibility,  and  a  heart  chap.  xi. 
so  affectionate  and  a  conscience  so  sensitive  as 
Lincoln's  found  material  for  exquisite  self-tor- 
ment in  these  conditions.  His  affection  for  his 
betrothed,  which  he  thought  was  not  strong 
enough  to  make  happiness  with  her  secure  ;  his 
doubts,  which  yet  were  not  convincing  enough  to 
induce  him  to  break  off  all  relations  with  her ;  his 
sense  of  honor,  which  was  wounded  in  his  own 
eyes  by  his  own  act ;  his  sense  of  duty,  which  con- 
demned him  in  one  course  and  did  not  sustain 
him  in  the  opposite  one  —  all  combined  to  make 
him  profoundly  and  passionately  miserable.  To 
his  friends  and  acquaintances,  who  were  unused 
to  such  finely  wrought  and  even  fantastic  sor- 
rows, his  trouble  seemed  so  exaggerated  that 
they  could  only  account  for  it  on  the  ground  of 
insanity.  But  there  is  no  necessity  of  accepting 
this  crude  hypothesis ;  the  coolest  and  most  ju- 
dicious of  his  friends  deny  that  his  depression  ever 
went  to  such  an  extremity.  Orville  H.  Browning, 
who  was  constantly  in  his  company,  says  that  his 
worst  attack  lasted  only  about  a  week ;  that  during 
this  time  he  was  incoherent  and  distraught;  but  that 
in  the  course  of  a  few  days  it  all  passed  off,  leaving- 
no  trace  whatever.  "  I  think,"  says  Mr.  Browning, 
"it  was  only  an  intensification  of  his  constitutional 
melancholy;  his  trials  and  embarrassments  pressed 
him  down  to  a  lower  point  than  usual." 

This  taint  of  constitutional  sadness  was  not 
peculiar  to  Lincoln  ;  it  may  be  said  to  have  been 
endemic  among  the  early  settlers  of  the  West.  It 
had  its  origin  partly  in  the  circumstances  of  their 
lives,  the  severe  and  dismal  loneliness  in  which 


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MAKEIAGE 


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"  Westerr 
Charac- 
ters," 
p.  134. 


their  struggle  for  existence  for  the  most  part  went  chap.  xt. 
on.  Their  summers  were  passed  in  the  solitude  of 
the  woods ;  in  the  winter  they  were  often  snowed 
up  for  months  in  the  more  desolate  isolation  of 
their  own  poor  cabins.  Their  subjects  of  conver- 
sation were  limited,  their  range  of  thoughts  and 
ideas  narrow  and  barren.  There  was  as  little 
cheerfulness  in  their  manners  as  there  was  incen- 
tive to  it  in  their  lives.  They  occasionally  burst 
out  into  wild  frolic,  which  easily  assumed  the  form 
of  comic  outrage,  but  of  the  sustained  cheerfulness 
of  social  civilized  life  they  knew  very  little.  One  of 
the  few  pioneers  who  have  written  their  observa- 
tions of  their  own  people,  John  L.  McConnell, 
says,  "  They  are  at  the  best  not  a  cheerful  race ; 
though  they  sometimes  join  in  festivities,  it  is  but 
seldom,  and  the  wilduess  of  their  dissipation  is  too 
often  in  proportion  to  its  infrequency.  There  is 
none  of  that  serene  contentment  which  distin- 
guishes the  tillers  of  the  ground  in  other  lands. 
.  .  .  Acquainted  with  the  character  [of  the  pio- 
neer], you  do  not  expect  him  to  smile  much,  but 
now  and  then  he  laughs." 

Besides  this  generic  tendency  to  melancholy, 
very  many  of  the  pioneers  were  subject  in  early 
life  to  malarial  influences,  the  effect  of  which 
remained  with  them  all  their  days.  Hewing  out 
their  plantations  in  the  primeval  woods  amid  the 
undisturbed  shadow  of  centuries,  breaking  a  soil 
thick  with  ages  of  vegetable  decomposition,  sleep- 
ing in  half-faced  camps,  where  the  heavy  air  of 
the  rank  woods  was  in  their  lungs  all  night,  or  in 
the  fouler  atmosphere  of  overcrowded  cabins,  they 
were  especially  subject  to  miasmatic  fevers.    Many 


190  ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

Chap.  xi.  died,  and  of  those  who  survived,  a  great  number, 
after  they  had  outgrown  the  more  immediate 
manifestations  of  disease,  retained  in  nervous  dis- 
orders of  all  kinds  the  distressing  traces  of  the 
maladies  which  afflicted  their  childhood.  In  the 
early  life  of  Lincoln  these  unwholesome  physical 
conditions  were  especially  prevalent.  The  country 
about  Pigeon  Creek  was  literally  devastated  by  the 
terrible  malady  called  "  milk-sickness,"  which  car- 
ried away  his  mother  and  haK  her  family.  His 
father  left  his  home  in  Macon  County,  also,  on 
account  of  the  frequency  and  severity  of  the  attacks 
of  fever  and  ague  which  were  suffered  there  ;  and, 
in  general,  Abraham  was  exposed  through  all  the 
earlier  part  of  his  life  to  those  malarial  influences 
which  made,  dming  the  fii'st  half  of  this  century, 
the  various  preparations  of  Peruvian  bark  a  part 
of  the  daily  food  of  the  people  of  Indiana  and  Illi- 
nois. In  many  instances  this  miasmatic  poison  did 
not  destroy  the  strength  or  materially  shorten  the 
lives  of  those  who  absorbed  it  in  their  youth ;  but 
the  effects  remained  in  periodical  attacks  of  gloom 
and  depression  of  spirits  which  would  seem  incom- 
prehensible to  thoroughly  healthy  organizations, 
and  which  gradually  lessened  in  middle  life,  often 
to  disappear  entirely  in  old  age. 

Upon  a  temperament  thus  predisposed  to  look 
at  things  in  their  darker  aspect,  it  might  naturally 
be  expected  that  a  love-affair  which  was  not  per- 
fectly happy  would  be  productive  of  great  misery. 
But  Lincoln  seemed  especially  chosen  to  the  keen- 
est suffering  in  such  a  conjuncture.    The  pioneer, 

"(^Irlli^    as  a  rule,  was  comparatively  free  from  any  troubles 
i?i26.      of  the  imagination.  To  quote  Mr.  McConnell  again: 


MAERIAGE  191 

"  There  was  no  romance  in  his  [the  pioneer's]  com-  chap,  xl 
position.  He  had  no  di'eaminess ;  meditation  was 
no  part  of  his  mental  habit;  a  poetical  fancy  would, 
in  him,  have  been  an  indication  of  insanity.  If  he 
reclined  at  the  foot  of  a  tree,  on  a  still  summer  day, 
it  was  to  sleep ;  if  he  gazed  out  over  the  waving 
prairie,  it  was  to  search  for  the  column  of  smoke 
which  told  of  his  enemies'  approach ;  if  he  turned 
his  eyes  towards  the  blue  heaven,  it  was  to  prog- 
nosticate to-morrow's  rain  or  sunshine.  If  he  bent 
his  gaze  towards  the  gi'een  earth,  it  was  to  look  for 
*  Indian  sign'  or  buffalo  trail.  His  wife  was  only  a 
helpmate ;  he  never  thought  of  making  a  divinity 
of  her."  But  Lincoln  could  never  have  claimed  this 
happy  immunity  from  ideal  trials.  His  published 
speeches  show  how  much  the  poet  in  him  was 
constantly  kept  in  check ;  and  at  this  time  of  his 
life  his  imagination  was  sufficiently  alert  to  inflict 
upon  him  the  sharpest  anguish.  His  reverence  for 
women  was  so  deep  and  tender  that  he  thought  an 
injury  to  one  of  them  was  a  sin  too  heinous  to  be 
expiated.  No  Hamlet,  dreaming  amid  the  turrets 
of  Elsinore,  no  Sidney  creating  a  chivalrous  Arca- 
dia, was  fuller  of  mystic  and  shadowy  fancies  of 
the  worth  and  dignity  of  woman  than  this  back- 
woods politician.  Few  men  ever  lived  more  sensi- 
tively and  delicately  tender  towards  the  sex. 

Besides  his  step-mother,  who  was  a  plain.  God- 
fearing woman,  he  had  not  known  many  others 
until  he  came  to  live  in  New  Salem.  There  he  had 
made  the  acquaintance  of  the  best  people  the  set- 
tlement contained,  and  among  them  had  become 
much  attached  to  a  young  girl  named  Ann  Rut- 
ledge,  the  daughter  of  one  of  the  proprietors  of  the 


192  ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

Chap.  XI.  placG.  She  died  in  her  girlhood,  and  though  there 
does  not  seem  to  have  been  any  engagement 
between  them,  he  was  profoundly  affected  by  her 
death.  But  the  next  year  a  young  woman  from 
Kentucky  appeared  in  the  village,  to  whom  he  paid 
such  attentions  as  in  his  opinion  fully  committed 
him  as  a  suitor  for  her  hand.  He  admired  her,  and 
she  seems  to  have  merited  the  admiration  of  all  the 
manhood  there  was  in  New  Salem.  She  was  hand- 
some and  intelligent  and  of  an  admirable  temper 
and  disposition.  While  they  were  together  he  was 
constant  in  his  attentions,  and  when  he  was  at 
Vandalia  or  at  Springfield  he  continued  his  assid- 
uities in  some  of  the  most  singular  love-letters 
ever  written.  They  are  filled  mostly  with  remarks 
about  current  politics,  and  with  arguments  going 
to  show  that  she  had  better  not  marry  him !  At 
the  same  time  he  clearly  intimates  that  he  is  at  her 
disposition  if  she  is  so  inclined.  At  last,  feeling 
that  his  honor  and  duty  were  involved,  he  made  a 
direct  proposal  to  her,  and  received  an  equally 
direct,  kind,  and  courteous  refusal.  Not  knowing 
but  that  this  indicated  merely  a  magnanimous 
desire  to  give  him  a  chance  for  escape,  he  persisted 
in  his  offer,  and  she  in  her  refusal.  When  the 
matter  had  ended  in  this  perfectly  satisfactory 
manner  to  both  of  them,  he  sat  down  and  wrote, 
by  way  of  epilogue  to  the  play,  a  grotesquely 
comic  account  of  the  whole  affair  to  Mrs.  O. 
H.  Browning,  one  of  his  intimate  Vandalia  ac- 
quaintances. 

This  letter  has  been  published  and  severely 
criticised  as  showing  a  lack  of  gentlemanlike 
feeling.     But  those  who    take   this  view  forget 


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MAKRIAGE  193 

that  he  was  writing  to  an  intimate  friend  of  a  chap.  xi. 
matter  which  had  greatly  occujned  his  own  mind 
for  a  year  ;  that  he  mentioned  no  names,  and  that 
he  threw  such  an  air  of  humorous  unreality  about 
the  whole  story  that  the  person  who  received  it 
never  dreamed  that  it  recorded  an  actual  occurrence 
until  twenty-five  years  afterwards,  when,  having 
been  asked  to  furnisli  it  to  a  biographer,  she  was 
warned  against  doing  so  by  the  President  himself, 
who  said  there  was  too  much  truth  in  it  for  print. 
The  only  significance  the  episode  possesses  is  in 
showing  this  almost  abnormal  development  of 
conscience  in  the  young  man  who  was  perfectly 
ready  to  enter  into  a  marriage  which  he  dreaded 
simply  because  he  thought  he  had  given  a  young 
woman  reason  to  think  that  he  had  such  intentions. 
While  we  admit  that  this  would  have  been  an 
irremediable  error,  we  cannot  but  wonder  at  the 
nobleness  of  the  character  to  which  it  was  pos- 
sible. 

In  this  vastly  more  serious  matter,  which  was, 
we  may  say  at  once,  the  crucial  ordeal  of  his  life, 
the  same  invincible  truthfulness,  the  same  innate 
goodness,  the  same  horror  of  doing  a  wrong,  are 
combined  with  an  exquisite  sensibility  and  a 
capacity  for  suffering  which  mark  him  as  a  man 
"picked  out  among  ten  thousand."  His  habit  of 
relentless  self -searching  reveals  to  him  a  state  of 
feeling  which  strikes  him  with  dismay ;  his  simple 
and  inflexible  veracity  communicates  his  trouble 
and  his  misery  to  the  woman  whom  he  loves ;  his 
freedom,  when  he  has  gained  it,  yields  him  nothing 
but  an  agony  of  remorse  and  humiliation.  He 
could  not  shake  off  his  pain,  like  men  of  cooler 
Vol.  I.— 13 


194  ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

Chap.  XI.  heads  and  shallower  hearts.  It  took  fast  hold  of 
him  and  dragged  him  into  awful  depths  of  darkness 
and  torture.  The  letter  to  Stuart,  which  we  have 
given,  shows  him  emerging  from  the  blackest 
period  of  that  time  of  gloom.  Immediately  after 
this,  he  accompanied  his  close  friend  and  con- 
fidant, Joshua  F.  Speed,  to  Kentucky,  where,  in  a 
way  so  singular  that  no  writer  of  fiction  would 
dare  to  employ  the  incident,  he  became  almost 
cured  of  his  melancholy,  and  came  back  to  Illinois 
and  his  work  again. 

Mr.  Speed  was  a  Kentuckian,  carrying  on  a 
general  mercantile  business  in  Springfield  —  a 
brother  of  the  distinguished  lawyer,  James  Speed, 
of  Louisville,  who  afterwards  became  Attorney- 
General  of  the  United  States,  He  was  one  of  those 
men  who  seem  to  have  to  a  greater  extent  than 
others  the  genius  of  friendship,  the  Pythias,  the 
Pylades,  the  Horatios  of  the  world.  It  is  hardly 
too  much  to  say  that  he  was  the  only —  as  he  was 
certainly  the  last  —  intimate  friend  that  Lincoln 
ever  had.  He  was  his  closest  companion  in  Spring- 
field, and  in  the  evil  days  when  the  letter  to  Stuart 
was  written  he  took  him  with  brotherly  love  and 
authority  under  his  special  care.  He  closed  up  his 
affairs  in  Springfield,  and  went  with  Lincoln  to 
Kentucky,  and,  introducing  him  to  his  own  cordial 
and  hospitable  family  circle,  strove  to  soothe  his 
perturbed  spirit  by  every  means  which  unaffected 
friendliness  could  suggest.  That  Lincoln  found 
much  comfort  and  edification  in  that  genial  com- 
panionship is  shown  by  the  fact  that  after  he 
became  President  he  sent  to  Mr.  Speed's  mother  a 
photograph  of  himself,  inscribed,  "  For  Mrs.  Lucy 


MAKRIAGE  195 

G.  Speed,  from  whose  pious  hand  I  accepted  the   chap.  xi. 
present  of  an  Oxford  Bible  twenty  years  ago." 

But  the  principal  means  by  which  the  current  of 
his  thoughts  was  changed  was  never  dreamed  of 
by  himself  or  by  his  friend  when  they  left  Illinois. 
During  this  visit  Speed  himself  fell  in  love,  and 
became  engaged  to  be  married;  and  either  by  a 
singular  chance  or  because  the  maladies  of  the 
soul  may  be  propagated  by  constant  association, 
the  feeling  of  despairing  melancholy,  which  he  had 
found  so  morbid  and  so  distressing  an  affliction  in 
another,  took  possession  of  himself,  and  threw 
him  into  the  same  slough  of  despondency  from 
which  he  had  been  laboring  to  rescue  Lincoln. 
Between  friends  so  intimate  there  were  no  con- 
cealments, and  from  the  moment  Lincoln  found 
his  services  as  nurse  and  consoler  needed,  the  vio- 
lence of  his  own  trouble  seemed  to  diminish.  The 
two  young  men  were  in  Springfield  together  in  the 
autumn,  and  Lincoln  seems  by  that  time  to  have 
laid  aside  his  own  peculiar  besetments,  in  order  to 
minister  to  his  friend.  They  knew  the  inmost 
thoughts  of  each  other's  hearts  and  each  relied 
upon  the  honesty  and  loyalty  of  the  other  to  an 
extent  rare  among  men.  When  Speed  returned  to 
Kentucky,  to  a  happiness  which  awaited  him  there, 
so  bright  that  it  dazzled  and  blinded  his  moral  vision, 
Lincoln  continued  his  counsels  and  encouragements 
in  letters  which  are  remarkable  for  their  tenderness 
and  delicacy  of  thought  and  expression.  Like 
another  poet,  he  looked  into  his  own  heart  and 
wrote.  His  own  deeper  nature  had  suffered  from 
these  same  fantastic  sorrows  and  terrors;  of  his 
own  grief  he  made  a  medicine  for  his  comrade. 


196  ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

Chap.  XI.  "WTiile  Speed  was  still  with  him,  he  wrote  a  long 
letter,  which  he  put  into  his  hands  at  parting,  full 
of  wise  and  affectionate  reasonings,  to  be  read 
when  he  should  feel  the  need  of  it.  He  predicts 
for  him  a  period  of  nervous  depression  —  first, 
because  he  will  be  "  exposed  to  bad  weather  on  his 
journey,  and,  secondly,  because  of  the  absence  of 
all  business  and  conversation  of  friends  which 
might  divert  his  mind  and  give  it  occasional  rest 
from  the  intensity  of  thought  which  will  sometimes 
wear  the  sweetest  idea  threadbare,  and  turn  it  to 
the  bitterness  of  death."  The  third  cause,  he  says, 
"  is  the  rapid  and  near  approach  of  that  crisis  on 
which  all  your  thoughts  and  feelings  concentrate." 
K  in  spite  of  all  these  circumstances  he  should 
escape  without  a  "  twinge  of  the  soul,"  his  friend 
will  be  most  happily  deceived ;  but,  he  continues, 
"  if  you  shall,  as  I  expect  you  will  at  some  time,  be 
agonized  and  distressed,  let  me,  who  have  some 
reason  to  speak  with  judgment  on  the  subject, 
beseech  you  to  ascribe  it  to  the  causes  I  have  men- 
tioned, and  not  to  some  false  and  ruinous  sugges- 
tion of  the  devil."  This  forms  the  prelude  to  an 
ingenious  and  affectionate  argument  in  which  he 
labors  to  convince  Speed  of  the  loveliness  of  his 
betrothed  and  of  the  integrity  of  his  own  heart ;  a 
strange  task,  one  would  say,  to  undertake  in  behalf 
of  a  young  and  ardent  lover.  But  the  two  men 
understood  each  other,  and  the  service  thus 
rendered  was  gratefully  received  and  remembered 
by  Speed  all  his  life. 

Lincoln  wrote  again  on  the  3d  of  February,  1842, 
congratulating  Speed  upon  a  recent  severe  illness 
of  his  destined  bride,  for  the  reason  that  "your 


MAEKIAGE  197 

present  distress  and  anxiety  about  her  health  nrnst  chap.  xi. 
forever  banish  those  horrid  doubts  which  you  feel 
as  to  the  truth  of  your  affection  for  her."  As  the 
period  of  Speed's  marriage  drew  near,  Lincoln's 
letters  betray  the  most  intense  anxiety.  He  can- 
not wait  to  hear  the  news  from  his  friend,  but 
writes  to  him  about  the  time  of  the  wedding, 
admitting  that  he  is  writing  in  the  dark,  that 
words  from  a  bachelor  may  be  worthless  to  a 
Benedick,  but  still  unable  to  keep  silence.  He 
hopes  he  is  happy  with  his  wife,  "  but  should  I  be 
mistaken  in  this,  should  excessive  pleasure  still  be 
accompanied  with  a  painful  counterpart  at  times, 
still  let  me  urge  you,  as  I  have  ever  done,  to 
remember  in  the  depth  and  even  agony  of  despond- 
ency, that  very  shortly  you  are  to  feel  well  again." 
Further  on  he  says:  "If  you  went  through  the 
ceremony  calmly,  or  even  with  sufficient  compos- 
ure not  to  excite  alarm  in  any  present,  you  are 
safe  beyond  question,"  seeking  by  every  device  of 
subtle  affection  to  lift  up  the  heart  of  his  friend. 

With  a  solicitude  apparently  greater  than  that  of 
the  nervous  bridegroom,  he  awaited  the  announce- 
ment of  the  marriage,  and  when  it  came  he  wrote 
(February  25) :  "  I  opened  the  letter  with  intense 
anxiety  and  trepidation ;  so  much  that,  although  it 
turned  out  better  than  I  expected,  I  have  hardly 
yet,  at  the  distance  of  ten  hours,  become  calm.  I 
tell  you.  Speed,  our  forebodings,  for  which  you  and 
I  are  peculiar,  are  all  the  worst  sort  of  nonsense. 
I  fancied  from  the  time  I  received  your  letter  of 
Saturday  that  the  one  of  Wednesday  was  never  to 
come,  and  yet  it  did  come,  and,  what  is  more,  it  is 
perfectly  clear,  both  from  its  tone  and  handwriting, 


198  ABKAHAM    LINCOLN 

Chap.  XI.  that  .  .  .  you  had  obviously  improved  at  the  very 
time  I  had  so  much  fancied  you  would  have  grown 
worse.  You  say  that  something  indescribably  hor- 
rible and  alarming  still  haunts  you.  You  will  not 
say  that  three  months  from  now,  I  will  venture." 
The  letter  goes  on  in  the  same  train  of  sympathetic 
cheer,  but  there  is  one  phrase  which  strikes  the 
keynote  of  all  lives  whose  ideals  are  too  high  for 
fulfillment :  "  It  is  the  peculiar  misfortune  of  both 
you  and  me  to  dream  dreams  of  Elysium  far 
exceeding  all  that  anything  earthly  can  realize." 
But  before  long  a  letter  came  from  Speed,  who 
had  settled  with  his  black-eyed  Kentucky  wife 
upon  a  well-stocked  plantation,  disclaiming  any 
further  fellowship  of  misery  and  announcing  the 
beginnings  of  that  life  of  uneventful  happiness 
which  he  led  ever  after.  His  peace  of  mind  has 
become  a  matter  of  course ;  he  dismisses  the  sub- 
ject in  a  line,  but  dilates,  with  a  new  planter's 
rapture,  upon  the  beauties  and  attractions  of  his 
farm.  Lincoln  frankly  answers  that  he  cares 
nothing  about  his  farm.  "  I  can  only  say  that  I 
am  glad  you  are  satisfied  and  pleased  with  it.  But 
on  that  other  subject,  to  me  of  the  most  intense 
interest  whether  in  joy  or  sorrow,  I  never  had  the 
power  to  withhold  my  sympathy  from  you.  It 
cannot  be  told  how  it  now  thrills  me  with  joy  to 
hear  you  say  you  are  '  far  happier  than  you  ever 
expected  to  be.'  .  .  I  am  not  going  beyond  the 
truth  when  I  tell  you  that  the  short  space  it  took 
me  to  read  your  last  letter  gave  me  more  pleasure 
than  the  total  sum  of  all  I  have  enjoyed  since  the 
fatal  1st  of  January,  1841.  Since  then  it  seems  to 
me  I  should  have  been  entirely  happy,  but  for  the 


MAHRIAGE  199 

never-absent  idea  that  there  is  one  still  unhappy   chap,  xi 
whom  I  have  contributed  to  make  so.    That  still 
kills  my  soul.    I  cannot  but  reproach  myself  for 
even  wishing  myself  to  be  happy  while  she  is 
otherwise." 

During  the  summer  of  1842  the  letters  of  the 
friends  still  discuss,  with  waning  intensity,  how- 
ever, their  respective  affairs  of  the  heart.  Speed, 
in  the  ease  and  happiness  of  his  home,  thanks  Lin- 
coln for  his  important  part  in  his  welfare,  and 
gives  him  sage  counsel  for  himself.  Lincoln  replies 
(July  4,  1842) :  "  I  could  not  have  done  less  than 
I  did.  I  always  was  superstitious  ;  I  believe  God 
made  me  one  of  the  instruments  of  bringing  your 
Fanny  and  you  together,  which  union  I  have  no 
doubt  he  foreordained.  Whatever  he  designs,  he 
will  do  for  me  yet."  A  better  name  than  "  super- 
stition "  might  properly  be  applied  to  this  frame  of 
mind.  He  acknowledges  Speed's  kindly  ad\'ice, 
but  says  :  "  Before  I  resolve  to  do  the  one  thing  or 
the  other,  I  must  gain  my  confidence  in  my  own 
ability  to  keep  my  resolves  when  they  are  made. 
In  that  ability  you  know  I  once  prided  myself,  as 
the  only  or  chief  gem  of  my  character ;  that  gem  I 
lost,  how  and  where  you  know  too  well.  I  have 
not  yet  regained  it ;  and  until  I  do  I  cannot  trust 
myself  in  any  matter  of  much  importance.  I 
believe  now,  that  had  you  understood  my  case  at 
the  time  as  well  as  I  understood  yours  afterwards, 
by  the  aid  you  would  have  given  me  I  should  have 
sailed  through  clear ;  but  that  does  not  afford  me 
confidence  to  begin  that,  or  the  like  of  that,  again." 
Still,  he  was  nearing  the  end  of  his  doubts  and 
self-torturing  sophistry.    A  last  glimpse  of  his  im- 


200  ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

CHAP.  XI.  perious  curiosity,  kept  alive  by  saucy  hopes  and 
fears,  is  seen  in  his  letter  to  Speed  of  the  5th  of 
October.  He  ventures,  with  a  genuine  timidity,  to 
ask  a  question  which  we  may  believe  has  not  often 
been  asked  by  one  civilized  man  of  another,  with 
the  hope  of  a  candid  answer,  since  marriages  were 
celebrated  with  ring  and  book.  "I  want  to  ask 
you  a  close  question  —  Are  you  now,  in  feeling  as 
well  as  judgment,  glad  you  are  married  as  you  are  I 
From  anybody  but  me  this  would  be  an  impudent 
question,  not  to  be  tolerated ;  but  I  know  you  will 
pardon  it  in  me.  Please  answer  it  quickly,  as  I  am 
impatient  to  know."  It  is  probable  that  Mr,  Speed 
replied  promptly  in  the  way  in  which  such 
questions  must  almost  of  necessity  be  answered. 
On  the  4th  of  November,  1842,  a  marriage  license 
was  issued  to  Lincoln,  and  on  the  same  day  he  was 
married  to  Miss  Mary  Todd,  the  ceremony  being 
performed  by  the  Eev.  Charles  Dresser.  Four  sons 
were  the  issue  of  this  marriage  :  Robert  Todd,  born 
August  1,  1843;  Edward  Baker,  March  10,  1846; 
William  Wallace,  December  21,  1850 ;  Thomas, 
April  4,  1853.  Of  these  only  the  eldest  lived  to 
maturity. 

In  this  way  Abraham  Lincoln  met  and  passed 
through  one  of  the  most  important  crises  of  his  life. 
There  was  so  much  of  idiosyncrasy  in  it  that  it 
has  been,  and  will  continue  to  be  for  years  to  come, 
the  occasion  of  endless  gossip  in  Sangamon 
County  and  elsewhere.  Because  it  was  not  pre- 
cisely like  the  experience  of  other  people,  who  are 
married  and  given  in  marriage  every  day  without 
any  ado,  a  dozen  conflicting  stories  have  grown  up, 
more  or  less  false  and  injurious  to  both  contracting 


MAKEIAGE  201 

parties.  But  it  may  not  be  fanciful  to  suppose  chap,  xl 
that  characters  like  that  of  Lincoln,  elected  for 
great  conflicts  and  trials,  are  fashioned  by  different 
processes  from  those  of  ordinary  men,  and  pass 
their  stated  ordeals  in  a  different  way.  By  cir- 
cumstances which  seem  commonplace  enough  to 
commonplace  people,  he  was  thrown  for  more  than 
a  year  into  a  sea  of  perplexities  and  sufferings 
beyond  the  reach  of  the  common  run  of  souls. 

It  is  as  useless  as  it  would  be  indelicate  to  seek  to 
penetrate  in  detail  the  incidents  and  special  causes 
which  produced  in  his  mind  this  darkness  as  of  the 
valley  of  the  shadow  of  death.  There  was  probably 
nothing  worth  recording  in  them ;  we  are  only 
concerned  with  their  effect  upon  a  character  which 
was  to  be  hereafter  for  all  time  one  of  the  posses- 
sions of  the  nation.  It  is  enough  for  us  to  know 
that  a  great  trouble  came  upon  him,  and  that  he 
bore  it  nobly  after  his  kind.  That  the  manner 
in  which  he  confronted  this  crisis  was  strangely 
different  from  that  of  most  men  in  similar  circum- 
stances need  surely  occasion  no  surprise.  Neither 
in  this  nor  in  other  matters  was  he  shaped  in  the 
average  mold  of  his  contemporaries.  In  many 
respects  he  was  doomed  to  a  certain  loneliness  of 
excellence.  There  are  few  men  that  have  had  his 
stern  and  tyrannous  sense  of  duty,  his  womanly 
tenderness  of  heart,  his  wakeful  and  inflexible 
conscience,  which  was  so  easy  towards  others  and 
so  merciless  towards  himself.  Therefore  when  the 
time  came  for  all  of  these  qualities  at  once  to  be 
put  to  the  most  strenuous  proof,  the  whole  course 
of  his  development  and  the  tendency  of  his  nature 
made  it  inevitable  that  his  suffering  should  be  of  the 


202  ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

Chap.  XI.  keenest  and  his  final  triumph  over  himself  should 
be  of  the  most  complete  and  signal  character.  In 
that  struggle  his  youth  of  reveries  and  day-dreams 
passed  away.  Such  furnace-blasts  of  proof,  such 
pangs  of  transformation,  seem  necessary  for  excep- 
tional natures.  The  bread  eaten  in  tears,  of  which 
Goethe  speaks,  the  sleepless  nights  of  sorrow, 
are  required  for  a  clear  vision  of  the  celestial 
powers.  Fortunately  the  same  qualities  that 
occasion  the  conflict  insure  the  victory  also.  From 
days  of  gloom  and  depression,  such  as  we  have 
been  considering,  no  doubt  came  precious  results  in 
the  way  of  sympathy,  self-restraint,  and  that  sober 
reliance  on  the  final  triumph  of  good  over  evil 
peculiar  to  those  who  have  been  greatly  tried  but 
not  destroyed.  The  late  but  splendid  matm-ity  of 
Lincoln's  mind  and  character  dates  from  this  time, 
and,  although  he  grew  in  strength  and  knowledge 
to  the  end,  from  this  year  we  observe  a  steadiness 
and  sobriety  of  thought  and  purpose,  as  discernible 
in  his  life  as  in  his  style.  He  was  like  a  blade 
forged  in  fire  and  tempered  in  the  ice-brook,  ready 
for  battle  whenever  the  battle  might  come. 


CHAPTER    XII 


THE    SHIELDS    DUEL 


AN  incident  which  occurred  during  the  summer  chap.  xii. 
JTjL  preceding  Mr.  Lincoln's  marriage,  and  which 
in  the  opinion  of  many  had  its  influence  in  has- 
tening that  event,  deserves  some  attention,  if  only 
from  its  incongruity  with  the  rest  of  his  history. 
This  was  the  farce  —  which  aspired  at  one  time  to 
be  a  tragedy  —  of  his  first  and  last  duel.  Among 
the  ofl&cers  of  the  State  Government  was  a  young 
Irishman  named  James  Shields,  who  owed  his  post 
as  Auditor,  in  great  measure,  to  that  alien  vote 
to  gain  which  the  Democrats  had  overturned  the 
Supreme  Court.  The  finances  of  the  State  were  in 
a  deplorable  condition :  the  treasury  was  empty ; 
auditor's  warrants  were  selling  at  half  their 
nominal  value ;  no  more  money  was  to  be  bor- 
rowed, and  taxation  was  dreaded  by  both  political 
parties  more  than  disgrace.  The  currency  of  the 
State  banks  was  well-nigh  worthless,  but  it  consti- 
tuted nearly  the  only  circulating  medium  in  the 
State. 

In  the  middle  of  August  the  Governor,  Auditor, 
and  Treasurer  issued  a  circular  forbidding  the  pay- 
ment of  State  taxes  in  this  depreciated  paper. 
This  order  was  naturally  taken  by  the  Whigs  as 


203 


204  ABKAHAM    LINCOLN 

Chap.  XII.  indicating  on  the  part  of  these  officers  a  keener 
interest  in  the  integrity  of  their  salaries  than  in 
the  public  welfare,  and  it  was  therefore  severely 
attacked  in  all  the  opposition  newspapers  of  the 
State. 

The  sharpest  assault  it  had  to  endure,  how- 
ever, was  in  a  communication,  dated  August  27, 
and  printed  in  the  "  Sangamo  Journal "  of  Sep- 
tember 2,  not  only  dissecting  the  administra- 
tion circular  with  the  most  savage  satire,  but 
covering  the  Auditor  with  merciless  personal 
ridicule.  It  was  written  in  the  dialect  of  the 
country,  dated  from  the  "  Lost  Townships,"  and 
signed  "  Rebecca,"  and  purported  to  come  from  a 
farmer  widow  of  the  county,  who  expressed  in 
this  fashion  her  discontent  with  the  evil  course 
of  affairs. 

Shields  was  a  man  of  inordinate  vanity  and  a 
corresponding  irascibility.  He  was  for  that  reason 
an  irresistible  mark  for  satire.  Through  a  long 
life  of  somewhat  conspicuous  public  service,  he 
never  lost  a  certam  tone  of  absurdity  which  can 
only  be  accounted  for  by  the  qualities  we  have 
mentioned.  Even  his  honorable  wounds  in  battle, 
while  they  were  productive  of  great  public  applause 
and  political  success,  gained  him  scarcely  less 
ridicule  than  praise.  He  never  could  refrain 
from  talking  of  them  himself,  having  none  of 
Coriolanus's  repugnance  in  that  respect,  and  for 
that  reason  was  a  constant  target  for  newspaper 
wits. 

After  Shields  returned  from  the  Mexican  war, 
with  his  laurels  still  green,  and  at  the  close  of 
the  canvass  which   had   made  him   Senator,  he 


THE    SHIELDS    DUEL  205 

wrote  an  incredible  letter  to  Judge  Breese,  his  chap.  xii. 
principal  competitor,  in  which  he  committed  the 
gratuitous  folly  of  informing  him  that  "he  had 
sworn  in  his  heart  [if  Breese  had  been  elected] 
that  he  should  never  have  profited  by  his  success ; 
and  depend  upon  it,"  he  added,  in  the  amazing 
impudence  of  triumph,  "I  would  have  kept  that 
vow,  regardless  of  consequences.  That,  however, 
is  now  past,  and  the  vow  is  canceled  by  your 
defeat."  He  then  went  on,  with  threats  equally 
indecent,  to  make  certain  demands  which  were 
altogether  inadmissible,  and  which  Judge  Breese 
only  noticed  by  sending  this  preposterous  letter  to  'i^^^i^^^- 
the  press.       ^  _  %;';i" 

It  may  easily  be  imagined  that  a  man  who,  after 
being  elected  a  Senator  of  the  United  States,  was 
capable  of  the  insane  insolence  of  signing  his  name 
to  a  letter  informing  his  defeated  competitor  that 
he  would  have  killed  him  if  the  result  had  been 
different,  would  not  have  been  likely,  when  seven 
years  younger,  to  bear  newspaper  ridicule  with 
equanimity.  His  fury  against  the  unknown  author 
of  the  satire  was  the  subject  of  much  merriment  in 
Springfield,  and  the  next  week  another  letter 
appeared,  from  a  different  hand,  but  adopting  the 
machinery  of  the  first,  in  which  the  widow  offered 
to  make  up  the  quarrel  by  marrying  the  Auditor, 
and  this,  in  time,  was  followed  by  an  epithalamium, 
in  which  this  happy  compromise  was  celebrated  in 
very  bad  verses.  In  the  change  of  hands  all  the 
humor  of  the  thing  had  evaporated,  and  nothing 
was  left  but  feminine  mischief  on  one  side  and  the 
exasperation  of  wounded  vanity  on  the  other. 

Shields,  however,  had  talked  so  much  about  the 


206  ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

Chap.  XII.  matter  that  he  now  felt  imperatively  called  upon 
to  act,  and  he  therefore  sent  General  Whitesides  to 
demand  from  the  "  Journal "  the  name  of  its  con- 
tributor. Mr.  Francis,  the  editor,  was  in  a  quan- 
dary. Lincoln  had  written  the  first  letter,  and  the 
antic  fury  of  Shields  had  induced  two  young  ladies 
who  took  a  lively  interest  in  Illinois  politics  —  and 
with  good  reason,  for  one  was  to  be  the  wife  of  a 
Senator  and  the  other  of  a  President  —  to  follow 
up  the  game  with  attacks  in  prose  and  verse  which, 
however  deficient  in  wit  and  meter,  were  not  wanting 
in  pungency.  In  his  dilemma  he  applied  to  Lincoln, 
who,  as  he  was  starting  to  attend  court  at  Tre- 
mont,  told  him  to  give  his  name  and  withhold  the 
names  of  the  ladies.  As  soon  as  Whitesides  received 
this  information,  he  and  his  fiery  principal  set  out  for 
Tremont,  and  as  Shields  did  nothing  in  silence,  the 
news  came  to  Lincoln's  friends,  two  of  whom,  Will- 
iam Butler  and  Dr.  Merryman,  one  of  those  combat- 
ive medical  men  who  have  almost  disappeared  from 
American  society,  went  off  in  a  buggy  in  pursuit. 
They  soon  came  in  sight  of  the  others,  but  loitered 
in  the  rear  until  evening,  and  then  drove  rapidly 
to  Tremont,  arriving  there  some  time  in  advance 
of  Shields;  so  that  in  the  ensuing  negotiations 
Abraham  Lincoln  had  the  assistance  of  friends 
whose  fidelity  and  whose  nerve  were  equally  be- 
yond question. 

It  would  be  useless  to  recount  all  the  tedious 
preliminaries  of  the  affair.  Shields  opened  the 
correspondence,  as  might  have  been  expected,  with 
blustering  and  with  threats;  his  nature  had  no 
other  way  of  expressing  itself.  His  first  letter  was 
taken  as  a  bar  to  any  explanation  or  understand- 


THE    SHIELDS    DUEL  207 

ing,  and  he  afterwards  wrote  a  second,  a  little  less  chap,  xii- 
offensive  in  tone,  but  without  withdrawing  the 
first.  At  every  interview  of  the  seconds  General 
Whitesides  deplored  the  bloodthirsty  disposition  of 
his  principal,  and  urged  that  Mr.  Lincoln  should 
make  the  concessions  which  alone  would  prevent 
lamentable  results.  These  representations  seemed 
to  avail  nothing,  however,  and  the  parties,  after 
endless  talk,  went  to  Alton  and  crossed  the  river 
to  the  Missouri  shore.  It  seemed  for  a  moment 
that  the  fight  must  take  place.  The  terms  had 
been  left  by  the  code,  as  then  understood  in  the 
West,  to  Lincoln,  and  he  certainly  made  no  grudg- 
ing use  of  his  privilege.  The  weapons  chosen  were 
"  cavalry  broadswords  of  the  largest  size";  and  the 
combatants  were  to  stand  on  either  side  of  a  board 
placed  on  the  ground,  each  to  fight  in  a  limit  of  six 
feet  on  his  own  side  of  the  board.  It  was  evident 
that  Lincoln  did  not  desire  the  death  of  his  adver- 
sary, and  did  not  intend  to  be  materially  injured 
himself.  The  advantage  morally  was  altogether 
against  him.  He  felt  intensely  the  stupidity  of  the 
whole  affair,  but  thought  he  could  not  avoid  the 
fight  without  degradation ;  while  to  Shields  such  a 
fracas  was  a  delight.  The  duel  came  to  its  natural 
end  by  the  intervention  of  the  usual "  gods  out  of  a 
machine,"  the  gods  being  John  J.  Hardin  and  one 
Dr.  English,  and  the  machine  a  canoe  in  which 
they  had  hastily  paddled  across  the  Mississippi. 
Shields  suffered  himself  to  be  persuaded  to  with- 
draw his  offensive  challenge.  Lincoln  then  made 
the  explanation  he  had  been  ready  to  make  from 
the  beginning;  avowing  the  one  letter  he  had 
written,  and  saying  that  it  had  been  printed  solely 


208  ABEAHAM    LINCOLN 

Chap.  XII.  for  political  effect,  and  without  any  intention  of 
injuring  Shields  personally. 

One  would  think  that,  after  a  week  passed  in 
such  unprofitable  trifling,  the  parties,  principal 
and  secondary,  would  have  been  willing  to  drop 
the  matter  forever.  "We  are  sui^e  that  Lincoln 
would  have  been  glad  to  banish  it,  even  from  his 
memory ;  but  to  men  like  Shields  and  Whitesides, 
the  peculiar  relish  and  enjoyment  of  such  an  affair 
is  its  publicity.  On  the  3d  of  October,  therefore, 
eleven  days  after  the  meeting,  as  public  attention 
seemed  to  be  flagging,  Whitesides  wrote  an  account 
of  it  to  the  "  Sangamo  Journal,"  for  which  he  did 
not  forget  to  say,  "I  hold  myself  responsible! "  Of 
course  he  seized  the  occasion  to  paint  a  heroic  por- 
trait of  himself  and  his  principal.  It  was  an  excel- 
lent story  until  the  next  week,  when  Dr.  Merryman, 
who  seems  to  have  wielded  a  pen  like  a  scalpel, 
gave  a  much  fuller  history  of  the  matter,  which  he 
substantiated  by  printing  all  the  documents,  and, 
not  content  with  that,  gave  little  details  of  the 
negotiations  which  show,  either  that  Whitesides 
was  one  of  the  most  grotesque  braggarts  of  the 
time,  or  that  Merryman  was  an  admirable  writer 
of  comic  fiction.  Among  the  most  amusing  facts 
he  brought  forward  was  that  Whitesides,  being  a 
Fund  Commissioner  of  the  State,  ran  the  risk  of 
losing  his  office  by  engaging  in  a  duel ;  and  his 
anxiety  to  appear  reckless  and  dangerous,  and  yet 
keep  within  the  statute  and  save  his  salary,  was 
depicted  by  Merryman  with  a  droll  fidelity.  He 
concluded  by  charging  Whitesides  plainly  with 
"  inefficiency  and  want  of  knowledge  of  those  laws 
which  govern  gentlemen  in  matters  of  this  kind," 


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THE    SHIELDS    DUEL  209 

and  with  "  trying  to  wipe  out  his  fault  by  doing  an  chap,  xii 
act  of  injustice  to  Mr.  Lincoln." 

The  town  was  greatly  diverted  by  these  pungent 
echoes  of  the  bloodless  fight,  and  Shields  and 
Whitesides  felt  that  their  honor  was  still  out  of 
repair.  A  rapid  series  of  challenges  succeeded 
among  the  parties,  principals  and  seconds  chang- 
ing places  as  deftly  as  dancers  in  a  quadrille.  The 
Auditor  challenged  Mr.  Butler,  who  had  been  very 
outspoken  in  his  contemptuous  comments  on  the 
affair.  Butler  at  once  accepted,  and  with  a  grim 
sincerity  announced  his  conditions — "to  fight  next 
morning  at  sunrising  in  Bob  Allen's  meadow,  one 
hundi'ed  yards'  distance,  with  rifles."  This  was 
instantly  decUned,  with  a  sort  of  horror,  by  Shields 
and  Whitesides,  as  such  a  proceeding  would  have 
proved  fatal  to  their  official  positions  and  their 
means  of  livelihood.  They  probably  cared  less  for 
the  chances  of  harm  from  Butler's  Kentucky  rifle 
than  for  the  certainty  of  the  Illinois  law  which  cut 
off  all  duelists  from  holding  office  in  the  State. 

But,  on  the  other  hand, —  so  unreasonable  is 
human  nature  as  displayed  among  politicians, — 
General  Whitesides  felt  that  if  he  bore  patiently  the 
winged  words  of  Merryman,  his  availability  as  a 
candidate  was  greatly  damaged ;  and  he  therefore 
sent  to  the  witty  doctor  what  Mr.  Lincoln  called 
"a  quasi-challenge,"  hurling  at  him  a  modified 
defiance,  which  should  be  enough  to  lure  him  to 
the  field  of  honor,  and  yet  not  sufficiently  explicit 
to  lose  Whitesides  the  dignity  and  perquisites 
of  Fund  Commissioner.  Merryman,  not  being  an 
office-holder  and  having  no  salary  to  risk,  re- 
sponded with  brutal  directness,  which  was  highly 

Vol.  L— 14 


210  ABKAHAM    LINCOLN 

Chap,  XII.  unsatisfactory  to  Whitesides,  who  was  determined 
not  to  fight  unless  he  could  do  so  lawfully;  and 
Lincoln,  who  now  acted  as  second  to  the  doctor  in 
his  turn,  records  the  cessation  of  the  correspond- 
ence amid  the  agonized  explanations  of  Whitesides 
and  the  scornful  hootings  of  Merryman,  "  while 
the  town  was  in  a  ferment  and  a  street  fight  some- 
what anticipated."  In  respect  to  the  last  diversion 
the  town  was  disappointed. 

Shields  lost  nothing  by  the  hilarity  which  this 
burlesque  incident  created.  He  was  reserved  for  a 
career  of  singular  luck  and  glory  mingled  with 
signal  misfortunes.  On  account  of  his  political 
availability  he  continued  throughout  a  long  life- 
time to  be  selected  at  intervals  for  high  positions. 
After  he  ceased  to  be  Auditor  he  was  elected  a 
judge  of  the  Supreme  Court  of  Illinois ;  while  still 
holding  that  position  he  applied  for  the  place  of 
Commissioner  of  the  General  Land  Office,  and  his 
application  was  successful.  When  the  Mexican  war 
broke  out  he  asked  for  a  commission  as  brigadier- 
general,  although  he  still  held  his  civil  appointment, 
and,  to  the  amazement  of  the  whole  army,  he  was 
given  that  important  command  before  he  had  ever 
seen  a  day's  service.  At  the  battle  of  Cerro  Gordo 
he  was  shot  through  the  lungs,  and  this  wound 
made  him  a  United  States  Senator  as  soon  as 
he  returned  from  the  war.  After  he  had  served 
one  term  in  the  Senate,  he  removed  from  Illinois, 
and  was  soon  sent  back  to  the  same  body  from 
Minnesota.  In  the  war  of  the  rebellion  he  was 
again  appointed  a  brigadier-general  by  his  old 
adversary,  and  was  again  wounded  in  a  battle 
in  which    his    troops    defeated    the    redoubtable 


THE    SHIELDS    DUEL  211 

Stonewall  Jackson ;  and  many  years  after  Lincoln  chap.  xii. 
was  laid  to  sleep  beneath  a  mountain  of  marble  at 
Springfield,  Shields  was  made  the  shuttlecock  of 
contending  demagogues  in  Congress,  each  striving 
to  make  a  point  by  voting  him  money  —  until  in 
the  impulse  of  that  transient  controversy,  the  State 
of  Missouri,  finding  the  gray-headed  soldier  in  her 
borders,  for  the  third  time  sent  him  to  the  Senate 
of  the  United  States  for  a  few  weeks  —  a  history 
unparalleled  even  in  America. 

We  have  reason  to  think  that  the  affair  of  the 
duel  was  excessively  distasteful  to  Lincoln.  He 
did  not  even  enjoy  the  ludicrousness  of  it,  as  might 
have  been  expected.  He  never  —  so  far  as  we  can 
learn  —  alluded  to  it  afterwards,  and  the  recollec- 
tion of  it  died  away  so  completely  from  the  minds  of 
people  in  the  State,  that  during  the  heated  canvass 
of  1860  there  was  no  mention  of  this  disagreeable 
episode  in  the  opposition  papers  of  Illinois.  It  had 
been  absolutely  forgotten. 

This  was  Mr.  Lincoln's  last  personal  quarrel.^ 

1  Lincoln's  life  was  unusually  my  words    '  imported   insult.'     I 

free  from  personal  disputes.    We  meant  them  as  a  fair  set-off  to 

know  of  only  one  other  hostile  your  own    statements,   and   not 

letter  addressed  to  him.   This  was  otherwise  ;  and  in  that  light  alone 

from  W.  G.  Anderson,  who  being  I  now  wish   you  to   understand 

worsted  in   a   verbal    encounter  them.     You  ask  for  my  '  present 

with  Lincoln   at   Lawrenceville,  feelings  on  the  subject.'    I  enter- 

the    county-seat     of     Lawrence  tain  no   unkind   feeling  to  you, 

County,   111.,  wrote   him   a  note  and  none  of  any  sort  upon  the 

demanding  an  explanation  of  his  subject,  except  a  sincere  regret 

words  and  of  his  "present  feel-  that  I  permitted  myself  to  get 

ings."  Lincoln's  reply  shows  that  into  any  such  altercation."    This 

his   habitual    peaceableness    in-  seems  to  have  ended  the  matter — 

volved  no  lack  of  dignity ;  he  said,  although  the  apology  was  made 

"Your  note  of  yesterday  is  re-  rather  to  himself  than    to   Mr. 

ceived.    In  the  difficulty  between  Anderson.      (See    the    letter    of 

us  of  which  you  speak,  you  say  William  C.  Wilkinson  in   "  The 

you  think  I  was  the  aggressor.  Century  Magazine  "  for  January, 

I  do  not  think  I  was.     You  say  1889.) 


212  ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

Chap.  XII.  Although  the  rest  of  his  life  was  passed  in  hot  and 
earnest  debate,  he  never  again  descended  to  the  level 
of  his  adversaries,  who  would  gladly  enough  have 
resorted  to  unseemly  wrangling.  In  later  years  it 
became  his  duty  to  give  an  official  reprimand  to  a 
young  officer  who  had  been  court-martialed  for  a 
quarrel  with  one  of  his  associates.  The  reprimand 
is  probably  the  gentlest  recorded  in  the  annals  of 
penal  discourses,  and  it  shows  in  few  words  the 
principles  which  ruled  the  conduct  of  this  great 
and  peaceable  man.  It  has  never  before  been  pub- 
lished, and  it  deserves  to  be  written  in  letters  of 
gold  on  the  walls  of  every  gymnasium  and  college : 

The  advice  of  a  father  to  his  son,  ''  Beware  of  entrance 
to  a  quarrel,  but  being  in,  bear  it  that  the  opposed  may 
beware  of  thee  ! "  is  good,  but  not  the  best.  Quarrel  not 
at  all.  No  man  resolved  to  make  the  most  of  himself 
can  spare  time  for  personal  contention.  Still  less  can  he 
afford  to  take  all  the  consequences,  including  the  vitiating 
of  his  temper  and  the  loss  of  self-control.  Yield  larger 
things  to  which  you  can  show  no  more  than  equal  right ; 
and  yield  lesser  ones  though  clearly  your  own.  Better 
give  your  path  to  a  dog  than  be  bitten  by  him  in  contest- 
ing for  the  right.  Even  killing  the  dog  would  not  cure 
the  bite. 


CHAPTER    XIII 


THE    CAMPAIGN    OF    1844 


IN  the  letter  to  Stuart  which  we  have  quoted,  chap.  xiii. 
Lincoln  announced  his  intention  to  form  a 
partnership  with  Judge  Logan,  which  was  soon 
carried  out.  His  connection  with  Stuart  was  form- 
ally dissolved  in  April,  1841,  and  one  with  Logan 
formed  which  continued  for  four  years.  It  may 
almost  be  said  that  Lincoln's  practice  as  a  law- 
yer begins  from  this  time.  Stuart,  though  even 
then  giving  promise  of  the  distinction  at  which 
he  arrived  in  his  profession  later  in  life,  was  at 
that  period  so  entirely  devoted  to  politics  that  the 
business  of  the  office  was  altogether  a  secondary 
matter  to  him  ;  and  Lincoln,  although  no  longer  in 
his  first  youth,  being  then  thirty-two  years  of  age, 
had  not  yet  formed  those  habits  of  close  application 
which  are  indispensable  to  permanent  success  at 
the  bar.  He  was  not  behind  the  greater  part  of 
his  contemporaries  in  this  respect.  Among  all  the 
lawyers  of  the  circuit  who  were  then,  or  who  after- 
wards became,  eminent  practitioners,^  there  were 
few  indeed  who  in  those  days  applied  themselves 

1  They  were  Dan  Stone,  Jesse  uel    H.   Treat,   Ninian    W.    Ed- 

B.      Thomas,      Cyrus     Walker,  wards,    Josiah    Lamborn,    John 

Schuyler     Strong,     Albert     T.  J.    Hardin,    Edward    D.    Baker, 

Bledsoe,  George  Forquer,   Sam-  and  others. 

213 


214  ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

Chap.  XIII.  with  any  degree  of  persistency  to  the  close  study 
of  legal  principles.  One  of  these  few  was  Stephen 
T.  Logan.  He  was  more  or  less  a  politician,  as 
were  all  his  compeers  at  the  bar,  but  he  was  always 
more  a  lawyer  than  anything  else.  He  had  that 
love  for  his  profession  which  it  jealously  exacts 
as  a  condition  of  succeeding.  He  possessed  few 
books,  and  it  used  to  be  said  of  him  long  after- 
wards that  he  carried  his  library  in  his  hat.  But 
the  books  which  he  had  he  never  ceased  to  read 
and  ponder,  and  we  heard  him  say  when  he  was 
sixty  years  old,  that  once  every  year  since  he  came 
of  age  he  had  read  "  Blackstone's  Commentaries  " 
through.  He  had  that  old-fashioned,  lawyer-like 
morality  which  was  keenly  intolerant  of  any  laxity 
or  slovenliness  of  mind  or  character.  His  former 
partner  had  been  Edward  D.  Baker,  but  this 
brilliant  and  mercurial  spirit  was  not  congenial  to 
Logan ;  Baker's  carelessness  in  money  matters  was 
intolerable  to  him,  and  he  was  glad  to  escape  from 
an  associate  so  gifted  and  so  exasperating.^ 

Needing  some  one,  however,  to  assist  him  in  his 
practice,  which  was  then  considerable,  he  invited 
Lincoln  into  partnership.  He  had,  as  we  have 
seen,  formed  a  favorable  opinion  of  the  young 
Kentuckian  the  first  time  they  had  met.  In  his 
subsequent  acquaintance  with  him  he  had  come  to 
recognize  and  respect  his  abilities,  his  unpretending 

1  Logan's  office  was,  in  fact,  a  able  to  elect  one.     After  he  had 

nursery  of  statesmen.     Three  of  retired  from  practice,  the  office, 

his  partners,   William  L.    May,  tmder   his    son-in-law    and   suc- 

Baker,  and  Lincoln,  left  him  in  cessor,  Milton  Hay,  retained  its 

rapid  succession  to  go  to  Congress,  prestige  for  cradling  public  men. 

and  finally  the  contagion  gained  John  M.  Palmer  and  Shelby  M. 

the  head  of  the  firm,  and  the  judge  CuUom  left  it  to  be  Governors  of 

was  himself  the  candidate  of  his  the  State,  and  the  latter  to  be  a 

party,    when  it  was  no    longer  Congressman  and  Senator. 


THE    CAMPAIGN    OF    1844  215 

common  sense,  and  his  innate  integrity.  The  chap.xiii. 
partnership  continued  about  four  years,  but  the 
benefit  Lincoln  derived  from  it  lasted  all  his  life. 
The  example  of  Judge  Logan's  thrift,  order,  and 
severity  of  morals ;  his  straightforward  devotion  to 
his  profession;  his  close  and  careful  study  of  his 
cases,  together  with  the  larger  and  more  important 
range  of  practice  to  which  Lincoln  was  introduced 
by  this  new  association,  confirmed  all  those 
salutary  tendencies  by  which  he  had  been  led  into 
the  profession,  and  corrected  those  less  desirable 
ones  which  he  shared  with  most  of  the  lawyers 
about  him.  He  began  for  the  first  time  to  study 
his  cases  with  energy  and  patience ;  to  resist  the 
tendency,  almost  universal  at  that  day,  to  supply 
with  florid  rhetoric  the  attorney's  deficiency  in 
law ;  in  short,  to  educate,  discipline,  and  train  the 
enormous  faculty,  hitherto  latent  in  him,  for  close 
and  severe  intellectual  labor.  Logan,  who  had  ex- 
pected that  Lincoln's  chief  value  to  him  would  be 
as  a  talking  advocate  before  juries,  was  surprised 
and  pleased  to  find  his  new  partner  rapidly  becom- 
ing a  lawyer.  "  He  would  study  out  his  case  and 
make  about  as  much  of  it  as  anybody,"  said  Logan, 
many  years  afterwards.  "  His  ambition  as  a 
lawyer  increased ;  he  grew  constantly.  By  close 
study  of  each  case,  as  it  came  up,  he  got  to  be 
quite  a  formidable  lawyer."  The  character  of  the 
man  is  in  these  words.  He  had  vast  concerns  in- 
trusted to  him  in  the  course  of  his  life,  and  dis- 
posed of  them  one  at  a  time  as  they  were  presented. 
At  the  end  of  four  years  the  partnership  was 
dissolved.  Judge  Logan  took  his  son  David — after- 
wards a  well-known  politician  and  lawyer  of  Ore- 


216  ABKAHAM    LINCOLN 

Chap.  XIII.  gon  —  into  his  office,  and  Lincoln  opened  one  of  his 
own,  into  which  he  soon  invited  a  young,  bright,  and 
enthusiastic  man  named  WilHam  Henry  Herndon, 
who  remained  his  partner  as  long  as  Lincoln  lived. 

The  old  partners  continued  close  and  intimate 
friends.  They  practiced  at  the  same  bar  for  twenty 
years,  often  as  associates,  and  often  as  adversaries, 
but  always  with  relations  of  mutual  confidence  and 
regard.  They  had  the  unusual  honor,  while  they 
were  still  comparatively  young  men,  of  seeing  their 
names  indissolubly  associated  in  the  map  of  their 
State  as  a  memorial  to  future  ages  of  their  friend- 
ship and  their  fame,  in  the  county  of  Logan,  of 
which  the  city  of  Lincoln  is  the  county-seat. 

They  both  prospered,  each  in  his  way.  Logan 
rapidly  gained  a  great  reputation  and  accumulated 
an  ample  fortune.  Lincoln,  while  he  did  not 
become  rich,  always  earned  a  respectable  liveli- 
hood, and  never  knew  the  care  of  poverty  or  debt 
from  that  time  forward.  His  wife  and  he  suited 
their  style  of  living  to  their  means,  and  were 
equally  removed  from  luxury  and  privation.  They 
went  to  live,  immediately  after  their  marriage,  at 
a  boarding-house^  called  "The  Globe,"  which  was 
"  very  well  kept  by  a  widow  lady  of  the  name  of 
Beck,"  and  there  their  first  child  was  born,  who 
was  one  day  to  be  Secretary  of  War  and  Minister 
to  England,  and  for  whom  was  reserved  the  strange 
experience  of  standing  by  the  death-bed  of  two 
assassinated  Presidents.  Lincoln  afterwards  built 
a  comfortable  house  of  wood  on  the  corner  of 
Eighth  and  Jackson  streets,  where  he  lived  until 
he  removed  to  the  White  House. 

1  This  house  is  still  standing,  opposite  St.  Paul's  church. 


THE    CAMPAIGN    OF    1844  217 

Neither  his  marriage  nor  his  new  professional  chap.xiii. 
interests,  however,  put  an  end  to  his  participation 
in  politics.  Even  that  period  of  gloom  and  depres- 
sion of  which  we  have  spoken,  and  which  has  been 
so  much  exaggerated  by  the  chroniclers  and  the 
gossip  of  Springfield,  could  not  have  interrupted 
for  any  length  of  time  his  activity  as  a  member  of 
the  Legislature.  Only  for  a  few  days  was  he 
absent  from  his  place  in  the  House.  On  the  19th 
of  January,  1841,  John  J.  Hardin  apologized  for 
the  delay  in  some  committee  business,  alleging 
Mr.  Lincoln's  indisposition  as  an  excuse.  On  the 
23d  the  letter  to  Stuart  was  written;  but  on  the 
26th  Lincoln  had  so  far  recovered  his  self-posses- 
sion as  to  resume  his  place  in  the  House  and  the 
leadership  of  his  party.  The  journals  of  the  next 
month  show  his  constant  activity  and  prominence 
in  the  routine  business  of  the  Legislature  until  it 
adjourned.  In  August,  Stuart  was  reelected  to 
Congress.  Lincoln  made  his  visit  to  Kentucky 
with  Speed,  and  returned  to  find  himself  generally 
talked  of  for  Governor  of  the  State.  This  idea  did 
not  commend  itself  to  the  judgment  of  himself  or 
his  friends,  and  accordingly  we  find  in  the  "  San- 
gamo  Journal "  one  of  those  semi-of&cial  announce- 
ments so  much  in  vogue  in  early  Western  politics, 
which,  while  disclaiming  any  direct  inspiration 
from  Mr.  Lincoln,  expressed  the  gratitude  of  his 
friends  for  the  movement  in  his  favor,  but  declined 
the  nomination.  "  His  talents  and  services  endear 
him  to  the  Whig  party ;  but  we  do  not  believe  he 
desires  the  nomination.  He  has  already  made 
great  sacrifices  in  maintaining  his  party  principles, 
and  before  his  political  friends  ask  him  to  make 


218  ABEAHAM    LINCOLN 

chap.xiil  additional  sacrifices,  the  subject  should  be  well 
considered.  The  office  of  Governor,  which  would 
of  necessity  interfere  with  the  practice  of  his  pro- 
fession, would  poorly  compensate  him  for  the  loss 
of  four  of  the  best  years  of  his  life." 

He  served  this  year  as  a  member  of  the  Whig 
Central  Committee,  and  bore  a  prominent  part  in 
the  movement  set  on  foot  at  that  time  to  check 
intemperance  in  the  use  of  spirits.  It  was  a  move- 
ment in  the  name  and  memory  of  Washington,  and 
the  orators  of  the  cause  made  effective  rhetorical 
use  of  its  august  associations.  A  passage  from  the 
close  of  a  speech  made  by  Lincoln  on  February  22, 
1842,  shows  the  fervor  and  feeling  of  the  hour: 
"Washington  is  the  mightiest  name  of  earth  — 
long  since  mightiest  in  the  cause  of  civil  liberty ; 
still  mightiest  in  moral  reformation.  On  that 
name  no  eulogy  is  expected.  It  cannot  be.  To 
add  brightness  to  the  sun  or  glory  to  the  name  of 
Washington  is  alike  impossible.  Let  none  attempt 
it.  In  solemn  awe  pronounce  the  name,  and  in  its 
naked,  deathless  splendor  leave  it  shining  on." 

A  mass  meeting  of  the  Whigs  of  the  district  was 
held  at  Springfield  on  the  1st  of  March,  1843,  for 
the  purpose  of  organizing  the  party  for  the  elec- 
tions of  the  year.  On  this  occasion  Lincoln  was 
the  most  prominent  figure.  He  called  the  meeting 
to  order,  stated  its  object,  and  drew  up  the  plat- 
form of  principles,  which  embraced  the  orthodox 
Whig  tenets  of  a  protective  tariff,  national  bank, 
the  distribution  of  the  proceeds  of  the  public  lands, 
and,  finally,  the  tardy  conversion  of  the  party  to 
the  convention  system,  which  had  been  forced 
upon  them  by  the  example  of  the  Democrats,  who 


THE    CAMPAIGN    OF    1844  219 

had  shown  them  that  victory  could  not  be  organ-  chap.xiii, 
ized  without  it.  Lincoln  was  also  chairman  of  the 
committee  which  was  charged  with  the  address  to 
the  people,  and  a  paragraph  from  this  document  is 
worth  quoting,  as  showing  the  use  which  he  made 
at  that  early  day  of  a  pregnant  text  which  was 
hereafter  to  figure  in  a  far  more  momentous  con- 
nection, and  exercise  a  powerful  influence  upon  his 
career.  Exhorting  the  Whigs  to  harmony,  he  says : 
"  That  union  is  strength  is  a  truth  that  has  been 
known,  illustrated,  and  declared  in  various  ways 
and  forms  in  all  ages  of  the  world.  That  great 
fabulist  and  philosopher,  JEsop,  illustrated  it  by 
his  fable  of  the  bundle  of  sticks;  and  He  whose 
wisdom  surpasses  that  of  all  philosophers  has 
declared  that  'a  house  divided  against  itself  can- 
not stand.' "  He  calls  to  mind  the  victory  of  1840, 
the  overwhelming  majority  gained  by  the  "Whigs 
that  year,  their  ill  success  since,  and  the  necessity 
of  unity  and  concord  that  the  party  may  make  its 
entire  strength  felt. 

Lincoln  was  at  this  time  a  candidate  for  the 
Whig  nomination  to  Congress;  but  he  was  con- 
fronted by  formidable  competition.  The  adjoining 
county  of  Morgan  was  warmly  devoted  to  one  of 
its  own  citizens,  John  J.  Hardin,  a  man  of  an 
unusually  gallant  and  chivalrous  strain  of  character; 
and  several  other  counties,  for  reasons  not  worth 
considering,  were  pledged  to  support  any  one 
whom  Morgan  County  presented.  If  Lincoln  had 
carried  Sangamon  County,  his  strength  was  so 
great  in  Menard  and  Mason,  where  he  was  person- 
ally known,  that  he  could  have  been  easily  nomi- 
nated.     But  Edward  D.  Baker  had  long  coveted  a 


220  ABKAHAM    LINCOLN 

Chap. XIII.  seat  in  Congress,  and  went  into  the  contest  against 
Lincoln  with  many  points  in  his  favor.  He  was  of 
about  the  same  age,  but  had  resided  longer  in  the 
district,  had  a  larger  personal  acquaintance,  and 
was  a  much  readier  and  more  pleasing  speaker. 
In  fact,  there  are  few  men  who  have  ever  lived  in 
this  country  with  more  of  the  peculiar  tempera- 
ment of  the  orator  than  Edward  Dickinson  Baker. 
It  is  related  of  him  that  on  one  occasion  when  the 
circumstances  called  for  a  policy  of  reserve,  he  was 
urged  by  his  friends  to  go  out  upon  a  balcony 
and  address  an  impromptu  audience,  which  was 
calling  for  him.  "  No,"  he  replied,  mistrusting  his 
own  fluency ;  "  if  I  go  out  there,  I  will  make  a  better 
speech  than  I  want  to."  He  was  hardly  capable 
of  the  severe  study  and  care  by  which  great 
parliamentary  speakers  are  trained  ;  but  before 
a  popular  audience,  and  on  all  occasions  where 
brilliant  and  effective  improvisation  was  called  for, 
he  was  almost  unequaled.  His  funeral  oration  over 
the  dead  body  of  Senator  Broderick  in  California, 
his  thrilling  and  inspiriting  appeal  in  Union  Square, 
New  York,  at  the  great  meeting  of  April,  1861, 
and  his  reply  to  Breckinridge  in  the  Senate  de- 
livered upon  the  impulse  of  the  moment,  conceived 
as  he  listened  to  the  Kentuckian's  peroration, 
leaning  against  the  doorway  of  the  Chamber  in  full 
uniform,  booted  and  spurred,  as  he  had  ridden  into 
Washington  from  the  camp,  are  among  the  most 
remarkable  specimens  of  absolutely  unstudied  and 
thrilling  eloquence  which  our  annals  contain.  He 
was  also  a  man  of  extremely  prepossessing  ap- 
pearance. Born  in  England  of  poor  yet  educated 
parents,  and  brought  as  a  child  to  this  country,  his 


THE    CAMPAIGN    OF    1844  221 

good  looks  and  brightness  had  early  attracted  chap.xiii. 
the  attention  of  prominent  gentlemen  in  Illinois, 
especially  of  Governor  Edwards,  who  had  made 
much  of  him  and  assisted  him  to  a  good  education. 
He  had  met  with  considerable  success  as  a  lawyer, 
though  he  always  relied  rather  upon  his  eloquence 
than  his  law,  and  there  were  few  juries  which 
could  resist  the  force  and  fury  of  his  speech,  and 
not  many  lawyers  could  keep  their  equanimity 
in  the  face  of  his  witty  persiflage  and  savage  sar- 
casm. When  to  all  this  is  added  a  genuine  love  of 
every  species  of  combat,  physical  and  moral,  we 
may  understand  the  name  Charles  Sumner — para- 
phrasing a  well-known  epigram — applied  to  him  in 
the  Senate,  after  his  heroic  death  at  Ball's  Bluff, 
"  the  Prince  Rupert  of  battle  and  debate." 

If  Baker  had  relied  upon  his  own  unquestionable 
merits  he  would  have  been  reasonably  sure  of 
succeeding  in  a  community  so  well  acquainted  with 
him  as  Sangamon  County.  But  to  make  assurance 
doubly  sure  his  friends  resorted  to  tactics  which 
Lincoln,  the  most  magnanimous  and  placable  of 
men,  thought  rather  unfair.  Baker  and  his  wife 
belonged  to  that  numerous  and  powerful  sect 
which  has  several  times  played  an  important  part 
in  Western  politics  —  the  Disciples.  They  all  sup- 
ported him  energetically,  and  used  as  arguments 
against  Lincoln  that  his  wife  was  a  Presbyterian, 
that  most  of  her  family  were  Episcopalians,  that 
Lincoln  himself  belonged  to  no  church,  and  that  he 
had  been  suspected  of  deism,  and,  finally,  that  he 
was  the  candidate  of  the  aristocracy.  This  last 
charge  so  amazed  Lincoln  that  he  was  unable  to 
frame  any  satisfactory  answer  to  it.     The  memory 


222  ABKAHAM    LINCOLN 

Chap.  XIII.  of  his  flat-boating  days,  of  his  illiterate  youth,  even 
of  his  deer-skin  breeches  shrunken  by  rain  and 
exposure,  appeared  to  have  no  power  against  this 
unexpected  and  baleful  charge.  When  the  county 
convention  met,  the  delegates  to  the  district  con- 
vention were  instructed  to  cast  the  vote  of  San- 
gamon for  Baker.  It  showed  the  confidence  of  the 
convention  in  the  imperturbable  good-nature  of  the 
defeated  candidate  that  they  elected  him  a  delegate 
to  the  Congressional  convention  charged  with  the 
cause  of  his  successful  rival.  In  a  letter  to  Speed, 
he  humorously  refers  to  his  situation  as  that  of  a 
rejected  suitor  who  is  asked  to  act  as  groomsman 
at  the  wedding  of  his  sweetheart. 

It  soon  became  evident  that  Baker  could  not  get 
strength  enough  outside  of  the  county  to  nominate 
him.  Lincoln  in  a  letter  to  Speed,  written  in  May, 
said:  "In  relation  to  oui*  Congi'ess  matter  here, 
you  were  right  in  supposing  I  would  support  the 
nominee.  Neither  Baker  nor  I,  however,  is  the 
man,  but  Hardin,  so  far  as  I  can  judge  from 
present  appearances.  We  shall  have  no  split  or 
trouble  about  the  matter ;  all  will  be  harmony."  A 
few  days  later  this  prediction  was  realized.  The 
convention  met  at  Pekin,  and  nominated  Hardin 
with  all  the  customary  symptoms  of  spontaneous 
enthusiasm.  He  was  elected  in  August,-^  after  a 
short  but  active  canvass,  in  which  Lincoln  bore  his 
part  as  usual.  Hardin  took  his  seat  in  December. 
The  next  year  the  time  of  holding  elections  was 
changed,  and  always  afterwards  the  candidates 
were   elected  the  year  before  vacancies  were  to 

1  The  opposing  candidate  was  fornia,  one  of  the  most  remark- 
James  A.  McDougall,  who  was  able  and  eccentric  figures  in 
afterwards,  as  Senator  from  Cali-    Washington  life. 


THE    CAMPAIGN    OF    1844  223 

occur.    In  May,  1844,  therefore,  Baker  attained  chap.xiii. 
the  desire  of  his  heart  by  being  nominated,  and  in 
August  he  was  elected,  defeating  John  Calhoun, 
while  Lincoln  had  the   laborious  and  honorable 
post  of  Presidential  Elector. 

It  was  not  the  first  nor  the  last  time  that  he 
acted  in  this  capacity.  The  place  had  become  his 
by  a  sort  of  prescription.  His  persuasive  and  con- 
vincing oratory  was  thought  so  useful  to  his  party 
that  every  four  years  he  was  sent,  in  the  character 
of  electoral  canvasser,  to  the  remotest  regions  of 
the  State  to  talk  to  the  people  in  their  own  dialect, 
with  their  own  habits  of  thought  and  feeling,  in 
favor  of  the  Whig  candidate.  The  ofiSce  had  its 
especial  charm  for  him;  if  beaten,  as  generally 
happened,  the  defeat  had  no  personal  significance ; 
if  elected,  the  functions  of  the  place  were  dis- 
charged in  one  day,  and  the  office  passed  from 
existence.  But  there  was  something  more  than  the 
orator  and  the  partisan  concerned  in  this  campaign 
of  1844.  The  whole  heart  of  the  man  was  enlisted 
in  it  —  for  the  candidate  was  the  beloved  and 
idolized  leader  of  the  Whigs,  Henry  Clay.  It  is 
probable  that  we  shall  never  see  again  in  this 
country  another  such  instance  of  the  personal 
devotion  of  a  party  to  its  chieftain  as  that  which 
was  shown  by  the  long  and  wonderful  career  of 
Mr.  Clay.  He  became  prominent  in  the  politics  of 
Kentucky  near  the  close  of  the  last  century  at 
twenty-three  years  of  age.  He  was  elected  first  to 
the  Senate  at  twenty-nine.  He  died  a  Senator  at 
seventy-five,  and  for  the  gi'eater  part  of  that  long 
interval  he  was  the  most  considerable  personal 
influence  in  American  politics.  As  Senator,  Repre- 


224  ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 

Chap.  XIII.  sentative,  Speaker  of  the  House,  and  diplomatist, 
he  filled  the  public  eye  for  half  a  century,  and 
although  he  twice  peremptorily  retired  from  office, 
and  although  he  was  the  mark  of  the  most  furious 
partisan  hatred  all  his  days,  neither  his  own  weari- 
ness nor  the  malice  of  his  enemies  could  ever  keep 
him  for  any  length  of  time  from  that  commanding 
position  for  which  his  temperament  and  his  nature 
designed  him.  He  was  beloved,  respected,  and 
served  by  his  adherents  with  a  single-hearted 
allegiance  which  seems  impossible  to  the  more 
complex  life  of  a  later  generation.  In  1844,  it  is 
true,  he  was  no  longer  young,  and  his  power  may 
be  said  to  have  been  on  the  decline.  But  there 
were  circumstances  connected  with  this  his  last 
candidacy  which  excited  his  faithful  followers  to  a 
peculiar  intensity  of  devotion.  He  had  been,  as 
many  thought,  unjustly  passed  over  in  1840,  and 
General  Harrison,  a  man  of  greatly  inferior  capacity, 
had  been  preferred  to  him  on  the  grounds  of  pru- 
dence and  expediency,  after  three  days  of  balloting 
had  shown  that  the  eloquent  Kentuckian  had  more 
friends  and  more  enemies  than  any  other  man  in 
the  republic.  He  had  seemed  to  regain  all  his  popu- 
larity by  the  prompt  and  frank  support  which  he 
gave  to  the  candidacy  of  Harrison;  and  after  the 
President's  death  and  the  treachery  of  Tyler  had 
turned  the  victory  of  the  Whigs  into  dust  and  ashes, 
the  entire  party  came  back  to  Clay  with  passionate 
affection  and  confidence,  to  lead  them  in  the  des- 
perate battle  which  perhaps  no  man  could  have 
won.  The  Whigs,  however,  were  far  from  appreciat- 
ing this.  There  is  evident  in  all  their  utterances  of 
the  spring  and  early  summer  of  1844,  an  ardent  and 


BRIG.-GEN.  JAMES   SHIELDS. 


:  V 


THE    CAMPAIGN    OF    1844  225 

almost  furious  conviction,  not  only  of  the  necessity  chap.xiil 
but  the  certainty  of  success.  Mr.  Clay  was  nomi- 
nated long  before  the  convention  met  in  Baltimore. 
The  convention  of  the  1st  of  May  only  ratified  the 
popular  will ;  no  other  name  was  mentioned.  Mr. 
Watkins  Leigh  had  the  honor  of  presenting  his 
name,  "  a  word,"  he  said  "  that  expressed  more 
enthusiasm,  that  had  in  it  more  eloquence,  than 
the  names  of  Chatham,  Burke,  Patrick  Henry, 
and,"  he  continued,  rising  to  the  requirements  of 
the  occasion,  "  to  us  more  than  any  other  and  all 
other  names  together."  Nothing  was  left  to  be 
said,  and  Clay  was  nominated  without  a  ballot; 
Mr.  Lumpkin,  of  Georgia,  then  nominated  Theo- 
dore Frelinghuysen  for  Vice-President,  not  hes- 
itating to  avow,  in  the  warmth  and  expansion 
of  the  hour,  that  he  believed  that  the  baptismal 
name  of  the  New  Jersey  gentleman  had  a  mystical 
appropriateness  to  the  occasion. 

In  the  Democratic  convention  Mr.  Van  Buren 
had  a  majority  of  delegates  pledged  to  support 
him  ;  but  it  had  already  been  resolved  in  the  inner 
councils  of  the  party  that  he  should  be  defeated. 
The  Southern  leaders  had  determined  upon  the 
immediate  and  unconditional  annexation  of  Texas, 
and  Mr.  Van  Buren's  views  upon  this  vital  ques- 
tion were  too  moderate  and  conservative  to  suit 
the  adventurous  spirits  who  most  closely  sur- 
rounded President  Tyler.  During  the  whole  of 
the  preceding  year  a  steady  and  earnest  propa- 
ganda of  annexation  had  been  on  foot,  starting 
from  the  immediate  entourage  of  the  President  and 
embracing  a  large  number  of  Southern  Congress- 
men. A  letter  had  been  elicited  from  General  Jack- 
VoL.  L— 15 


226  ABKAHAM    LINCOLN 

Chap.  XIII,  son,  declaring  witli  his  usual  vehemence  in  favor 
of  the  project,  and  urging  it  upon  the  ground  that 
Texas  was  absolutely  necessary  to  us,  as  the  most 
easily  defensible  frontier  against  Great  Britain. 
Using  the  favorite  argument  of  the  Southern- 
ers of  his  school,  he  said :  "  Great  Britain  has 
already  made  treaties  with  Texas;  and  we  know 
that  far-seeing  nation  never  omits  a  circumstance 
in  her  extensive  intercourse  with  the  world  which 
can  be  turned  to  account  in  increasing  her  military 
resources.  May  she  not  enter  into  an  alliance  with 
Texas  ?  And,  reserving,  as  she  doubtless  will,  the 
North-western  boundary  question  as  the  cause  of 
war  with  us  whenever  she  chooses  to  declare  it  — 
let  us  suppose  that,  as  an  ally  with  Texas,  we  are 
to  fight  her.  Preparatory  to  such  a  movement  she 
sends  her  20,000  or  30,000  men  to  Texas ;  organizes 
them  on  the  Sabine,  where  supplies  and  arms  can 
be  concentrated  before  we  have  even  notice  of  her 
intentions ;  makes  a  lodgment  on  the  Mississippi ; 
excites  the  negroes  to  insurrection;  the  lower 
country  falls,  with  it  New  Orleans ;  and  a  servile 
war  rages  through  the  whole  South  and  West."  ^ 

These  fanciful  prophecies  of  evil  were  privately 
circulated  for  a  year  among  those  whom  they 
would  be  most  likely  to  influence,  and  the  entire 
letter  was  printed  in  1844,  with  a  result  never 
slntoii,  intended  by  the  writer.  It  contributed  greatly,  in 
Yt^H^  the  opinion  of  many,  to  defeat  Van  Buren,  whom 
Jackson  held  in  great  esteem  and  regard,  and 
served  the  purposes  of  the  Tyler  faction,  whom  he 
detested.      The    argument    based    on    imaginary 

1  This  letter  was  dated  at  the  printed  a  year  later  in  the  "Na- 
Hermitage,  near  Nashville,  Ten-  tional  Intelligencer,"  with  the 
nessee,  Feb.  13,  1843,  and  was    date  altered  to   1844. 


View." 


THE    CAMPAIGN    OF    1844  227 

British  intrigues  was  the  one  most  relied  upon  by  chap.xiii. 
Mr.  Tyler's  successive  secretaries  of  state.  John  C. 
Calhoun,  in  his  dispatch  of  the  12th  of  August, 
1844,  instructed  our  minister  in  Paris  to  impress 
upon  the  Grovernment  of  France  the  nefarious 
character  of  the  English  diplomacy,  which  was 
seeking,  by  defeating  the  annexation  of  Texas,  to 
accomplish  the  abolition  of  slavery  first  in  that 
region,  and  afterwards  throughout  the  United 
States,  "  a  blow  calamitous  to  this  continent 
beyond  description."  No  denials  on  the  part  of  the 
British  Government  had  any  effect ;  it  was  a  fixed 
idea  of  Calhoun  and  his  followers  that  the  designs 
of  Great  Britain  against  American  slavery  could 
only  be  baffled  by  the  annexation  of  Texas.  Van 
Buren  was  not  in  principle  opposed  to  the  admis- 
sion of  Texas  into  the  Union  at  the  proper  time 
and  with  the  proper  conditions,  but  the  more 
ardent  Democrats  of  the  South  were  unwilling  to 
listen  to  any  conditions  or  any  suggestion  of  delay. 
They  succeeded  in  inducing  the  convention  to 
adopt  the  two-thirds  rule,  after  a  whole  day  of 
stormy  debate,  and  the  defeat  of  Van  Buren  was 
secured.  The  nomination  of  Mr.  Polk  was  received 
without  enthusiasm,  and  the  exultant  hopes  of  the 
Whigs  were  correspondingly  increased. 

Contemporary  observers  differ  as  to  the  causes 
which  gradually,  as  the  summer  advanced,  changed 
the  course  of  public  opinion  to  such  an  extent  as 
to  bring  defeat  in  November  upon  a  party  which 
was  so  sure  of  victory  in  June.  It  has  been  the 
habit  of  the  antislavery  Whigs  who  have  written 
upon  the  subject  to  ascribe  the  disaster  to  an  indis- 
cretion of  the  candidate  himself.    At  the  outset  of 


228  ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

Chap.  XIII.  the  Campaign  Mr.  Clay's  avowed  opinion  as  to  the 
annexation  of  Texas  was  that  of  the  vast  majority 
of  his  party,  especially  in  the  North.  While  not 
opposing  an  increase  of  territory  under  all  circum- 
stances, he  said, —  in  a  letter  written  from  Raleigh, 
N.  C,  two  weeks  before  his  nomination, —  "  I  con- 
sider the  annexation  of  Texas,  at  this  time,  without 
the  consent  of  Mexico,  as  a  measure  compromising 
the  national  character,  involving  us  certainly  in 
war  with  Mexico,  probably  with  other  foreign 
powers,  dangerous  to  the  integrity  of  the  Union, 
inexpedient  in  the  present  financial  condition  of 
the  country,  and  not  called  for  by  any  expression 
of  public  opinion."  He  supported  these  views  with 
temperate  and  judicious  reasons  which  were  re- 
ceived with  much  gratification  throughout  the 
country. 

Of  course  they  were  not  satisfactory  to  every 
one,  and  Mr.  Clay  became  so  disquieted  by  letters 
of  inquiry  and  of  criticism  from  the  South,  that  he 
was  at  last  moved,  in  an  unfortunate  hour,  to  write 
another  letter  to  a  friend  in  Alabama,  which  was 
regarded  as  seriously  modifying  the  views  he  had 
expressed  in  the  letter  from  Raleigh.  He  now  said : 
"I  have  no  hesitation  in  saying  that,  far  from 
having  any  personal  objections  to  the  annexation 
of  Texas,  I  should  be  glad  to  see  it  —  without  dis- 
honor, without  war,  with  the  common  consent  of 
the  Union,  and  upon  just  and  fair  terms.  .  .  I 
do  not  think  the  subject  of  slavery  ought  to  affect 
the  question  one  way  or  the  other,  whether  Texas 
be  independent  or  incorporated  in  the  United 
States.  I  do  not  believe  it  will  prolong  or  shorten 
the  duration  of  that  institution.      It  is  destined  to 


THE    CAMPAIGN    OF    1844  229 

become  extinct,  at  some  distant  day,  in  my  opinion,  chap.xiii. 
by  the  operation  of  the  inevitable  laws  of  popu- 
lation. It  would  be  unwise  to  refuse  a  permanent 
acquisition,  which  will  exist  as  long  as  the  globe 
remains,  on  account  of  a  temporary  institution." 
Mr.  Clay  does  not  in  this  letter  disclaim  or  disavow 
any  sentiments  previously  expressed.  He  says,  as 
any  one  might  say,  that  provided  certain  impossible 
conditions  were  complied  with,  he  would  be  glad 
to  see  Texas  in  the  Union,  and  that  he  was  so  sure 
of  the  ultimate  extinction  of  slavery  that  he  would 
not  let  any  consideration  of  that  transitory  system 
interfere  with  a  great  national  advantage.  It 
might  natui'ally  have  been  expected  that  such  an 
expression  would  have  given  less  offense  to  the 
opponents  than  to  the  friends  of  slavery.  But  the 
contrary  effect  resulted,  and  it  soon  became  evident 
that  a  grave  error  of  judgment  had  been  committed 
in  writing  the  letter. 

The  principal  opposition  to  annexation  in  the 
North  had  been  made  expressly  upon  the  ground 
that  it  would  increase  the  area  of  slavery,  and 
the  comparative  indifference  with  which  Mr.  Clay 
treated  that  view  of  the  subject  cost  him  heavily 
in  the  canvass.  Horace  Greeley,  who  should  be  ^American 
regarded  as  an  impartial  witness  in  such  a  case,  ^?."^'i67. 
says,  "The  'Liberty  Party,'  so-called,  pushed  this 
view  of  the  matter  beyond  all  justice  and  reason, 
insisting  that  Mr.  Clay's  antagonism  to  annexation, 
not  being  founded  in  antislavery  conviction,  was 
of  no  account  whatever,  and  that  his  election 
should,  on  that  ground,  be  opposed."  It  availed 
nothing  that  Mr.  Clay,  alarmed  at  the  defection  in 
the  North,  wrote  a  third  and  final  letter,  reiterating 


230  ABKAHAM    LINCOLN 

chap.xiii.  his  unaltered  objections  to  any  such  annexation  as 
was  at  that  time  possible.  The  damage  was  irre- 
trievable. It  is  not  probable  that  his  letters  gained 
or  saved  him  a  vote  in  the  South  among  the 
advocates  of  annexation.  They  cared  for  nothing 
short  of  their  own  unconditional  scheme  of  immedi- 
ate action.  They  forgot  the  services  rendered  by 
Mr.  Clay  in  bringing  about  the  recognition  of  Texan 
independence  a  few  years  before. 

They  saw  that  Mr.  Polk  was  ready  to  risk  every- 
thing —  war,  international  complications,  even  the 
dishonor  of  broken  obligations  —  to  accomplish 
their  purpose,  and  nothing  the  Whig  candidate 
could  say  would  weigh  anything  in  the  balance 
against  this  blind  and  reckless  readiness.  On  the 
other  hand,  Mr.  Clay's  cautious  and  moderate 
position  did  him  irreparable  harm  among  the  ar- 
dent opponents  of  slavery.  They  were  not  willing 
to  listen  to  counsels  of  caution  and  moderation. 
More  than  a  year  before,  thirteen  of  the  Whig 
antislavery  Congressmen,  headed  by  the  illustrious 
John  Quincy  Adams,  had  issued  a  fervid  address 
to  the  people  of  the  free  States,  declaiming  in 
language  of  passionate  force  against  the  scheme  of 
annexation  as  fatal  to  the  country,  calling  it,  in 
fact,  "  identical  with  dissolution,"  and  saying  that 
"  it  would  be  a  violation  of  our  national  compact, 
its  objects,  designs,  and  the  great  elementary 
principles  which  entered  into  its  formation  of  a 
character  so  deep  and  fundamental,  and  would  be 
an  attempt  to  eternize  an  institution  and  a  power 
of  nature  so  unjust  in  themselves,  so  injurious  to 
the  interests  and  abhorrent  to  the  feelings  of  the 
people  of  the  free  States,  as  in  our  opinion,  not 


THE    CAMPAIGN    OF    1844  231 

ouly    inevitably  to  result  in  a  dissolution  of  the  chap.xiii. 

Union,  but  fully  to  justify  it ;    and  we  not  only 

assert  that  the  people  of  the  free  States  ought  not 

to  submit  to  it,  but  we  say  with  confidence  they 

would  not  submit  to  it."    To  men  in  a  temper  like 

that  indicated  by  these  words,  no  arguments  drawn 

from  consideration  of  political  expediency  could  be 

expected  to  have  any  weight,  and  it  was  of  no  use 

to  say  to  them  that  in  voting  for  a  third  candidate 

they  were  voting  to  elect  Mr.  Polk,  the  avowed 

and  eager  advocate  of  annexation.    If  all  the  votes 

cast  for  James  Gr.  Birney,  the  "  Liberty  "  candidate, 

had  been  cast  for  Clay,  he  would  have  been  elected, 

and  even  as   it  was  the  contest  was  close  and 

doubtful  to  the  last.    Birney  received  62,263  votes, 

and  the  popular  majority  of  Polk  over  Clay  was 

only  38,792. 

There  are  certain  temptations  that  no  govern- 
ment yet  instituted  has  been  able  to  resist.  When 
an  object  is  ardently  desired  by  the  majority,  when 
it  is  practicable,  when  it  is  expedient  for  the 
material  welfare  of  the  country,  and  when  the  cost 
of  it  will  fall  upon  other  people,  it  may  be  taken  for 
granted  that  —  in  the  present  condition  of  interna- 
tional ethics — the  partisans  of  the  project  will  never 
lack  means  of  defending  its  morality.  The  annex- 
ation of  Texas  was  one  of  these  cases.  Moralists 
called  it  an  inexcusable  national  crime,  conceived 
by  Southern  statesmen  for  the  benefit  of  slavery,^ 
carried  on  during  a  term  of  years  with  unexampled 
energy,  truculence  and  treachery ;  in  both  houses 
of  Congress,  in  the  cabinets  of  two  Presidents,  in 

1  This  purpose  was  avowed  by    May    23,    1836;    see    also    his 
John  C.  Calhoun  in  the  Senate,     speech  of  February  24,  1847. 


232  ABEAHAM    LINCOLN 

Chap.  XIII.  diplomatic  dealings  with  foreign  powers,  every 
step  of  its  progi-ess  marked  by  false  professions,  by 
broken  pledges,  by  a  steady  degradation  of  moral 
fiber  among  all  those  engaged  in  the  scheme.  The 
opposition  to  it  —  as  usually  happens  —  consisted 
partly  in  the  natm-al  effort  of  partisans  to  baffle 
their  opponents,  and  partly  in  an  honorable  protest 
of  heart  and  conscience  against  a  great  wrong 
committed  in  the  interest  of  a  national  sin.  But 
looking  back  upon  the  whole  transaction  —  even 
over  so  short  a  distance  as  now  separates  us  from 
it  —  one  cannot  but  perceive  that  the  attitude  of 
the  two  parties  was  in  some  sort  inevitable  and 
that  the  result  was  also  sure,  whatever  the  subor- 
dinate events  or  incidents  which  may  have  led  to 
it.  It  was  impossible  to  defeat  or  greatly  to  delay 
the  annexation  of  Texas,  and  although  those  who 
opposed  it  but  obeyed  the  dictates  of  common 
morality,  they  were  fighting  a  battle  beyond  ordi- 
nary human  powers. 

Here  was  a  great  empire  offering  itself  to  us  — 
a  State  which  had  gained  its  independence,  and 
built  itself  into  a  certain  measui*e  of  order  and 
thrift  through  American  valor  and  enterprise.  She 
offered  us  a  magnificent  estate  of  376,000  square 
miles  of  territory,  all  of  it  valuable,  and  much 
of  it  of  unsurpassed  richness  and  fertility.  Even 
those  portions  of  it  once  condemned  as  desert  now 
contribute  to  the  markets  of  the  woi'ld  vast  stores 
of  wool  and  cotton,  herds  of  cattle  and  flocks  of 
sheep.  Not  only  were  these  material  advantages 
of  great  attractiveness  to  the  public  mind,  but 
many  powerful  sentimental  considerations  reen- 
forced  the  claim  of  Texas.    The  Texans  were  not 


THE    CAMPAIGN    OF    1844  233 

an  alien  people.  The  few  inhabitants  of  that  vast  chap.  xm. 
realm  were  mostly  Americans,  who  had  occupied 
and  subdued  a  vacant  wilderness.  The  heroic  de- 
fense of  the  Alamo  had  been  made  by  Travis,  Bowie, 
and  David  Crockett,  whose  exploits  and  death  form 
one  of  the  most  brilliant  pages  of  our  border  his- 
tory. Fannin  and  his  men,  four  hundred  strong, 
when  they  laid  down  their  lives  at  Goliad^  had 
carried  mourning  into  every  South-western  State  ; 
and  when,  a  few  days  later,  Samuel  Houston  and 
his  eight  hundred  raw  levies  defeated  and  destroyed 
the  Mexican  army  at  San  Jacinto,  captured  Santa 
Anna,  the  Mexican  president,  and  with  American 
thrift,  instead  of  giving  him  the  death  he  merited 
for  his  cruel  murder  of  unarmed  prisoners,  saved 
him  to  make  a  treaty  with,  the  whole  people 
recognized  something  of  kinship  in  the  unaffected 
valor  with  which  these  borderers  died  and  the 
humorous  shrewdness  with  which  they  bargained, 
and  felt  as  if  the  victory  over  the  Mexicans  were 
their  own. 

The  schemes  of  the  Southern  statesmen  who 
were  working  for  the  extension  of  slavery  were  not 
defensible,  and  we  have  no  disposition  to  defend 
them ;  but  it  may  be  doubted  whether  there  is  a 
government  on  the  face  of  the  earth  which,  under 
similar  circumstances,  would  not  have  yielded  to 
the  same  temptation. 

1  This  massacre  inspired  one  of  the  most  remarkable  poems  of 
Walt  Whitman,  "  Now  I  tell  you  what  I  knew  of  Texas  in  my  early 
youth,"  in  which  occurs  his  description  of  the  rangers : 

"  They  were  the  glory  of  the  race  of  rangers, 

Matchless  with  horse,  rifle,  song,  supper,  courtship. 

Large,  turbulent,  generous,  handsome,  proud,  and  affectionate, 

Bearded,  sunburnt,  drest  in  the  free  costume  of  hunters, 

Not  a  single  one  over  thirty  years  of  age." 


'234  ABEAHAM    LINCOLN 

Chap.  XIII.  Under  these  conditions,  the  annexation,  sooner 
or  later,  was  inevitable.  No  man  and  no  party 
could  oppose  it  except  at  serious  cost.  It  is  not 
true  that  schemes  of  annexation  are  always  popular. 
Several  administrations  have  lost  heavily  by  pro- 
posing them.  Grant  failed  with  Santo  Domingo ; 
Seward  with  St.  Thomas ;  and  it  required  all  his 
skill  and  influence  to  accomplish  the  ratification 
of  the  Alaska  purchase.  There  is  no  general  desire 
among  Americans  for  acquiring  outlying  territory, 
however  intrinsically  valuable  it  may  be;  their 
land-hunger  is  confined  within  the  limits  of  that 
of  a  Western  farmer  once  quoted  by  Mr.  Lincoln, 
who  used  to  say,  "  I  am  not  greedy  about  land ; 
I  only  want  what  jines  mine."  Whenever  a  region 
contiguous  to  the  United  States  becomes  filled 
with  Americans,  it  is  absolutely  certain  to  come 
under  the  American  flag.  Texas  was  as  sure  to  be 
incorporated  into  the  Union  as  are  two  drops  of 
water  touching  each  other  to  become  one ;  and  this 
consummation  would  not  have  been  prevented  for 
any  length  of  time  if  Clay  or  Van  Buren  had  been 
elected  in  1844.  The  honorable  scruples  of  the 
.  Whigs,  the  sensitive  consciences  of  the  "Liberty" 
men,  could  never  have  prevailed  permanently 
against  a  tendency  so  natural  and  so  irresistible. 

Everything  that  year  seemed  to  work  against 
the  Whigs.  At  a  most  unfortunate  time  for  them, 
there  was  an  outbreak  of  that  "native"  fanaticism 
which  reappears  from  time  to  time  in  our  politics 
with  the  periodicity  of  malarial  fevers,  and  always 
to  the  profit  of  the  party  against  which  its  efforts 
are  aimed.  It  led  to  great  disturbances  in  several 
cities,  and  to  riot  and  bloodshed  in  Philadelphia. 


THE    CAMPAIGN    OF    1844  235 

The  Clay  party  were,  of  course,  free  from  any  chap.xiii. 
complicity  with  these  outrages,  but  the  foreigners, 
in  their  alarm,  huddled  together  almost  as  one  man 
on  the  side  where  the  majority  of  them  always 
voted,  and  this  occasioned  a  heavy  loss  to  the 
Whigs  in  several  States.  The  first  appearance  of 
Lincoln  in  the  canvass  was  in  a  judicious  attempt 
to  check  this  unreasonable  panic.  At  a  meeting 
held  in  Springfield,  June  12,  he  introduced  and 
supported  resolutions,  declaring  that  "  the  guaran- 
tee of  the  rights  of  conscience  as  found  in  our 
Constitution  is  most  sacred  and  inviolable,  and  one 
that  belongs  no  less  to  the  Catholic  than  the 
Protestant,  and  that  all  attempts  to  abridge  or 
interfere  with  these  rights  either  of  Catholic  or 
Protestant,  directly  or  indirectly,  have  our  decided 
disapprobation,  and  shall  have  our  most  effective 
opposition."  Several  times  afterwards  in  his  life 
Lincoln  was  forced  to  confront  this  same  proscrfip- 
tive  spirit  among  the  men  with  whom  he  was  more 
or  less  affiliated  politically,  and  he  never  failed  to 
denounce  it  as  it  deserved,  whatever  might  be  the 
risk  of  loss  involved. 

Beginning  with  this  manly  protest  against  in- 
tolerance and  disorder,  he  went  into  the  work  of 
the  campaign  and  continued  in  it  with  unabated 
ardor  to  the  end.  The  defeat  of  Clay  affected  him, 
as  it  did  thousands  of  others,  as  a  great  public 
calamity  and  a  keen  personal  sorrow.  It  is  impos- 
sible to  mistake  the  accent  of  sincere  mourning 
which  we  find  in  the  journals  of  the  time.  The 
addresses  which  were  sent  to  Mr.  Clay  from  every 
part  of  the  country  indicate  a  depth  of  affectionate 
devotion  which  rarely  falls  to  the  lot  of  a  political 


236  ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

Chap.  XIII.  cMeftain.  An  extract  from  the  one  sent  by  the 
Clay  Clubs  of  New  York  will  show  the  earnest 
attachment  and  pride  with  which  the  young  men  of 
that  day  still  declared  their  loyalty  to  their  beloved 
leader,  even  in  the  midst  of  irreparable  disaster. 
"We  will  remember  you,  Henry  Clay,  while  the 
memory  of  the  glorious  or  the  sense  of  the  good 
remains  in  us,  with  a  grateful  and  admiring  affec- 
tion which  shall  strengthen  with  our  strength  and 
shall  not  decay  with  our  decline.  We  will  remem- 
ber you  in  all  our  f utui'e  trials  and  reverses  as  him 
whose  name  honored  defeat  and  gave  it  a  glory 
which  victory  could  not  have  brought.  We  will 
remember  you  when  patriotic  hope  rallies  again  to 
successful  contest  with  the  agencies  of  corruption 
and  ruin ;  for  we  will  never  know  a  triumph  which 
you  do  not  share  in  life,  whose  glory  does  not 
accrue  to  you  in  death." 


CHAPTER   XIV 


CAMPAIGN    FOR    CONGRESS 


IN  the  montlis  that  remained  of  his  term,  after  chap.  xrv. 
the  election  of  his  successor,  President  Tyler 
pursued  with  much  vigor  his  purpose  of  accom- 
plishing the  annexation  of  Texas,  regarding  it  as 
the  measure  which  was  specially  to  illustrate  his 
administration  and  to  preserve  it  from  oblivion. 
The  state  of  affairs,  when  Congress  came  together 
in  December,  1844,  was  propitious  to  the  project. 
Dr.  Anson  Jones  had  been  elected  as  President  of 
Texas ;  the  republic  was  in  a  more  thriving  condi- 
tion than  ever  before.  Its  population  was  rapidly 
increasing  under  the  stimulus  of  its  probable 
change  of  flag ;  its  budget  presented  a  less  un- 
wholesome balance ;  its  relations  with  Mexico, 
while  they  were  no  more  friendly,  had  ceased  to 
excite  alarm.  The  Tyler  government,  having  been 
baffled  in  the  spring  by  the  rejection  of  the  treaty 
for  annexation  which  they  had  submitted  to  the 
Senate,  chose  to  proceed  this  winter  in  a  different 
way.  Early  in  the  session  a  joint  resolution  pro- 
viding for  annexation  was  introduced  in  the  House 
of  Representatives,  which,  after  considerable  dis- 
cussion and  attempted  amendment  by  the  anti- 
slavery  members,  passed  the  House  by  a  majority 
of  twenty-two  votes. 

237 


238  ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

Chap.  XIV.  In  the  Senate  it  encountered  more  opposition,  as 
might  have  been  expected  in  a  chamber  which  had 
overwhelmingly  rejected  the  same  scheme  only  a 
few  months  before.  It  was  at  last  amended  by  in- 
serting a  section  called  the  Walker  amendment, 
providing  that  the  President,  if  it  were  in  his 
judgment  advisable,  should  proceed  by  way  of 
negotiation,  instead  of  submitting  the  resolutions 
as  an  overture  on  the  part  of  the  United  States 
to  Texas.  This  amendment  eased  the  conscience 
of  a  few  shy  supporters  of  the  Administration  who 
had  committed  themselves  very  strongly  against 
the  scheme,  and  saved  them  from  the  shame  of 
open  tergiversation.  The  President,  however, 
treated  this  subterfuge  with  the  contempt  which 
it  deserved,  by  utterly  disregarding  the  Walker 
amendment,  and  by  dispatching  a  messenger  to 
Texas  to  bring  about  annexation  on  the  basis  of 
the  resolutions,  the  moment  he  had  signed  them, 
when  only  a  few  hours  of  his  official  existence 
remained.  The  measures  initiated  by  Tyler  were, 
of  course,  carried  out  by  Polk.  The  work  was 
pushed  forward  with  equal  zeal  at  Washington  and 
at  Austin.  A  convention  of  Texans  was  called  for 
the  4th  of  July  to  consider  the  American  proposi- 
tions; they  were  promptly  accepted  and  ratified, 
and  in  the  last  days  of  1845  Texas  was  formally 
admitted  into  the  Union  as  a  State. 

Besides  the  general  objections  which  the  anti- 
slavery  men  of  the  North  had  to  the  project  itself, 
there  was  something  especially  offensive  to  them 
in  the  pretense  of  fairness  and  compromise  held 
out  by  the  resolutions  committing  the  Government 
to  annexation.     The  third  section  provided  that 


CAMPAIGN    FOR    CONGRESS  239 

four  new  States  might  hereafter  be  formed  out  of  chap.  xrv. 
the  Territory  of  Texas ;  that  such  States  as  were 
formed  out  of  the  portion  lying  south  of  36°  30', 
the  Missouri  Compromise  line,  might  be  admitted 
with  or  without  slavery,  as  the  people  might 
desire ;  and  that  slavery  should  be  prohibited  in 
such  States  as  might  be  formed  out  of  the  portion 
lying  north  of  that  line.  The  opponents  of  slavery 
regarded  this  provision,  with  good  reason,  as  deri- 
sive. Slavery  already  existed  in  the  entire  terri- 
tory by  the  act  of  the  early  settlers  from  the  South 
who  had  brought  their  slaves  with  them,  and  the 
State  of  Texas  had  no  valid  claim  to  an  inch  of 
ground  north  of  the  line  of  36°  30'  nor  anywhere 
near  it;  so  that  this  clause,  if  it  had  any  force 
whatever,  would  have  authorized  the  establish- 
ment of  slavery  in  a  portion  of  New  Mexico,  where 
it  did  not  exist,  and  where  it  had  been  expressly 
prohibited  by  the  Mexican  law.  Another  serious 
objection  was  that  the  resolutions  were  taken  as 
committing  the  United  States  to  the  adoption  and 
maintenance  of  the  Rio  Grande  del  Norte  as  the 
western  boundary  of  Texas.  All  mention  of  this 
was  avoided  in  the  instrument,  and  it  was  ex- 
pressly stated  that  the  State  was  to  be  formed 
"  subject  to  the  adjustment  by  this  G-overnment  of 
all  questions  of  boundary  that  may  arise  with  other 
governments,"  but  the  moment  the  resolutions 
were  passed  the  Government  assumed,  as  a  matter 
beyond  dispute,  that  all  of  the  territory  east  of  the 
Rio  Grande  was  the  rightful  property  of  Texas,  to 
be  defended  by  the  military  power  of  the  United 
States. 
Even  if  Mexico  had  been  inclined  to  submit  to 


240  ABEAHAM    LINCOLN 

Chap.  XIV.  the  annexation  of  Texas,  it  was  nevertheless  certain 
that  the  occupation  of  the  left  bank  of  the  Rio 
Grande,  without  an  attempt  at  an  understanding, 
would  bring  about  a  collision.  The  country  lying 
between  the  Nueces  and  the  Rio  Grande  was  then 
entirely  uninhabited,  and  was  thought  uninhabit- 
able, though  subsequent  years  have  shown  the  fal- 
lacy of  that  belief.  The  occupation  of  the  country 
extended  no  farther  than  the  Nueces,  and  the  Mex- 
ican farmers  cultivated  their  corn  and  cotton  in 
peace  in  the  fertile  fields  opposite  Matamoras. 

It  is  true  that  Texas  claimed  the  eastern  bank  of 
the  Rio  Grande  from  its  source  to  its  mouth ;  and 
while  the  Texans  held  Santa  Anna  prisoner,  under 
duress  of  arms  and  the  stronger  pressure  of  his 
own  conscience,  which  assured  him  that  he 
deserved  death  as  a  murderer,  "  he  solemnly  sanc- 
tioned, acknowledged,  and  ratified  "  their  independ- 
ence with  whatever  boundaries  they  chose  to 
claim ;  but  the  Bustamente  administration  lost 
no  time  in  repudiating  this  treaty,  and  at  once 
renewed  the  war,  which  had  been  carried  on  in  a 
fitful  way  ever  since. 

But  leaving  out  of  view  this  special  subject  of 
admitted  dispute,  the  Mexican  Government  had 
warned  our  own  in  suJB&ciently  formal  terms  that 
annexation  could  not  be  peacefully  effected.  When 
A.  P.  Upshur  first  began  his  negotiations  with 
Texas,  the  Mexican  Minister  of  Foreign  Affairs,  at 
"i^.  '^^'  his  earliest  rumors  of  what  was  afoot,  addressed  a 
note  to  Waddy  Thompson,  our  Minister  in  Mexico, 
referring  to  the  reported  intention  of  Texas  to  seek 
admission  to  the  Union,  and  formally  protesting 
against  it  as  "  an  aggression  unprecedented  in  the 


HENKY    CLAY. 


THE  V'H^I 

OF  THE 


-J 


CAMPAIGN  FOR  CONGRESS  241 

annals  of  the  world,"  and  adding  "  if  it  be  indispen-  chap.  xiv. 
sable  for  the  Mexican  nation  to  seek  security  for 
its  rights  at  the  expense  of  the  disasters  of  war, 
it  will  call  upon  God,  and  rely  on  its  own  efforts 
for  the  defense  of  its  just  cause."  A  little  while 
later  Greneral  Almonte  renewed  this  notification  at 
Washington,  saying  in  so  many  words  that  the 
annexation  of  Texas  would  terminate  his  mission, 
and  that  Mexico  would  declare  war  as  soon  as  it 
received  intimation  of  such  an  act.  In  June,  1845, 
Mr.  Donelson,  in  charge  of  the  American  Legation 
in  Mexico,  assured  the  Secretary  of  State  that  war 
was  inevitable,  though  he  adopted  the  fiction  of 
Mr.  Calhoun,  that  it  was  the  result  of  the  aboli- 
tionist intrigues  of  Great  Britain,  which  he  credited 
with  the  intention  "  of  depriving  both  Texas  and 
the  United  States  of  all  claim  to  the  country 
between  the  Nueces  and  the  Rio  Grande." 

No  one,  therefore,  doubted  that  war  would  fol- 
low, and  it  soon  came.  General  Zachary  Taylor 
had  been  sent  during  the  summer  to  Corpus  Christi, 
where  a  considerable  portion  of  the  small  army  of 
the  United  States  was  placed  under  his  command. 
It  was  generally  understood  to  be  the  desire  of  the 
Administration  that  hostilities  should  begin  with- 
out orders,  by  a  species  of  spontaneous  combustion ; 
but  the  coolness  and  prudence  of  General  Taylor 
made  futile  any  such  hopes,  if  they  were  enter- 
tained, and  it  required  a  positive  order  to  induce 
him,  in  March,  1846,  to  advance  towards  the  Rio 
Grande  and  to  cross  the  disputed  territory.  He 
arrived  at  a  point  opposite  Matamoras  on  the  28th 
of  March,  and  immediately  fortified  himself,  dis- 
regarding   the    summons    of    the   Mexican   com- 

VoL.  I.— 16 


242  ABKAHAM    LINCOLN 

Chap.  xrv.  mander,  who  warned  him  that  such  action  would 
be  considered  as  a  declaration  of  war.  In  May, 
General  Arista  crossed  the  river  and  attacked 
General  Taylor  on  the  field  of  Palo  Alto,  where 
Taylor  won  the  first  of  that  remarkable  series  of 
victories,  embracing  Resaca  de  la  Palma,  Mon- 
terey, and  Buena  Vista,  all  gained  over  superior 
forces  of  the  enemy,  which  made  the  American 
commander  for  the  brief  day  that  was  left  him  the 
idol  alike  of  soldiers  and  voters. 

After  Baker's  election  in  1844,  it  was  generally 
taken  as  a  matter  of  course  in  the  district  that 
Lincoln  was  to  be  the  next  candidate  of  the  Whig 
party  for  Congi'ess.  It  was  charged  at  the  time, 
and  some  recent  writers  have  repeated  the  charge, 
that  there  was  a  bargain  made  in  1840  between 
Hardin,  Baker,  Lincoln,  and  Logan  to  succeed 
each  other  in  the  order  named.  This  sort  of  fiction 
is  the  commonest  known  to  American  politics. 
Something  like  it  is  told,  and  more  or  less  believed, 
in  half  the  districts  in  the  country  at  every 
election.  It  arises  naturally  from  the  fact  that 
there  are  always  more  candidates  than  places,  that 
any  one  who  is  a  candidate  twice  is  felt  to  be 
defrauding  his  neighbors,  and  that  aU  candidates 
are  too  ready  to  assure  their  constituents  that  they 
only  want  one  term,  and  too  ready  to  forget  these 
assurances  when  their  terms  are  ending.  There  is 
not  only  no  evidence  of  any  such  bargain  among 
the  men  we  have  mentioned,  but  there  is  the 
clearest  proof  of  the  contrary.  Two  or  more  of 
them  were  candidates  for  the  nomination  at  every 
election  from  the  time  when  Stuart  retired  until 
the  Whigs  lost  the  district. 


CAMPAIGN    FOB    CONGEESS  243 

At  the  same  time  it  is  not  to  be  denied  that  chap.xfv. 
there  was  a  tacit  understanding  among  the  Whigs 
of  the  district  that  whoever  should,  at  each  election, 
gain  the  honor  of  representing  the  one  Whig 
constituency  of  the  State,  should  hold  himself 
satisfied  with  the  privilege,  and  not  be  a  candidate 
for  reelection.  The  retiring  member  was  not 
always  convinced  of  the  propriety  of  this  arrange- 
ment. In  the  early  part  of  January,  1846,  Hardin 
was  the  only  one  whose  name  was  mentioned  in 
opposition  to  Lincoln.  He  was  reasonably  sure  of 
his  own  county,  and  he  tried  to  induce  Lincoln  to 
consent  to  an  arrangement  that  all  candidates 
should  confine  themselves  to  their  own  counties  in 
the  canvass ;  but  Lincoln,  who  was  very  strong  in 
the  outlying  counties  of  the  district,  declined  the 
proposition,  alleging,  as  a  reason  for  refusing,  that 
Hardin  was  so  much  better  known  than  he,  by  rea- 
son of  his  service  in  Congress,  that  such  a  stipulation 
would  give  him  a  great  advantage.  There  was  fully 
as  much  courtesy  as  candor  in  this  plea,  and  Lin- 
coln's entire  letter  was  extremely  politic  and  civil. 
"  I  have  always  been  in  the  habit,"  he  says,  "  of 
acceding  to  almost  any  proposal  that  a  friend  would 
make,  and  I  am  truly  sorry  that  I  cannot  to  this." 
A  month  later  Hardin  saw  that  his  candidacy  was 
useless,  and  he  published  a  card  withdrawing  from 
the  contest,  which  was  printed  and  commended  in 
the  kindest  terms  by  papers  friendly  to  Lincoln, 
and  the  two  men  remained  on  terms  of  cordial 
friendship. 

It  is  not  to  be  said  that  Lincoln  relied  entirely 
upon  his  own  merits  and  the  sentiment  of  the 
constituents  to  procure  him  this  nomination.    Like 


244 


ABKAHAM    LINCOLN 


Chap.  XIV. 


Lincoln  to 
James, 
Nov.  24, 
1845.    Un- 
published 
M8. 


Lincoln  to 
James, 
Jan.  14, 

184«.    Un- 
published 

M8. 


Ibid. 


other  politicians  of  the  time,  he  used  all  proper 
means  to  attain  his  object.  A  package  of  letters, 
written  during  the  preliminary  canvass,  which  have 
recently  come  into  our  hands,  show  how  intelligent 
and  how  straightforward  he  was  in  the  ways  of 
politics.  He  had  no  fear  of  Baker ;  all  his  efforts 
were  directed  to  making  so  strong  a  show  of  force 
as  to  warn  Hardin  off  the  field.  He  countenanced 
no  attack  upon  his  competitor;  he  approved  a 
movement  —  not  entirely  disinterested  —  looking 
to  his  nomination  for  Governor.  He  kept  up  an 
extensive  correspondence  with  the  captains  of  tens 
throughout  the  district ;  he  suggested  and  revised 
the  utterances  of  country  editors;  he  kept  his 
friends  aware  of  his  wishes  as  to  conventions  and 
delegates.  He  was  never  overconfident ;  so  late  as 
the  middle  of  January,  he  did  not  share  the  belief 
of  his  supporters  that  he  was  to  be  nominated 
without  a  contest.  "  Hardin,"  he  wrote,  "  is  a  man 
of  desperate  energy  and  perseverance,  and  one 
that  never  backs  out ;  and,  I  fear,  to  think  other- 
wise is  to  be  deceived.  .  .  I  would  rejoice  to  be 
spared  the  labor  of  a  contest,  'but  being  in'  I 
shall  go  it  thoroughly.  .  ."  His  knowledge  of  the 
district  was  curiously  minute,  though  he  under- 
estimated his  own  popularity.  He  wrote :  "  As  to 
my  being  able  to  make  a  break  in  the  lower 
counties,  ...  I  can  possibly  get  Cass,  but  I  do 
not  think  I  will.  Morgan  and  Scott  are  beyond 
my  reach.  Menard  is  safe  to  me ;  Mason,  neck  and 
neck;  Logan  is  mine.  To  make  the  matter  sure 
your  entire  senatorial  district  must  be  secured.  Of 
this  I  suppose  Tazewell  is  safe,  and  I  have  much 
done  in  both  the  other  counties.    In  Woodford  I 


CAMPAIGN  FOE  CONGRESS  245 

have  Davenport,  Simms,  Willard,  Braken,  Perry,  chap.xiv. 
Travis,  Dr.  Hazzard,  and  the  Clarks,  and  some 
others,  all  specially  committed.  At  Lacon,  in  Mar- 
shall, the  very  most  active  friend  I  have  in  the  dis- 
trict (if  I  except  yourself)  is  at  work.  Through  him 
I  have  procured  the  names  and  written  to  three  or 
four  of  the  most  active  Whigs  in  each  precinct  of 
the  county.  Still,  I  wish  you  all  in  Tazewell  to  keep 
your  eyes  continually  on  Woodford  and  Marshall. 
Let  no  opportunity  of  making  a  mark  escape. 
When  they  shall  be  safe,  all  will  be  safe  —  I  think." 
His  constitutional  caution  suggests  those  final 
words.  He  did  not  relax  his  vigilance  for  a 
moment  until  after  Hardin  withdrew.  He  warned 
his  correspondents  day  by  day  of  every  move  on 
the  board ;  advised  his  supporters  at  every  point, 
and  kept  every  wire  in  perfect  working  order. 

The  convention  was  held  at  Petersburg  on  the 
1st  of  May.  Judge  Logan  placed  the  name  of  Lin- 
coln before  it,  and  he  was  nominated  unanimously. 
The  Springfield  "Journal,"  giving  the  news  the 
week  after,  said  :  "  This  nomination  was  of  course 
anticipated,  there  being  no  other  candidate  in  the 
field.  Mr.  Lincoln,  we  all  know,  is  a  good  Whig,  a 
good  man,  an  able  sjDeaker,  and  richly  deserves,  as 
he  enjoys,  the  confidence  of  the  Whigs  of  this 
district  and  of  the  State." 

The  Democrats  gave  Mr.  Lincoln  a  singular 
competitor  —  the  famous  Methodist  preacher,  Peter 
Cartwright.  It  was  not  the  first  time  they  had 
met  in  the  field  of  politics.  When  Lincoln  ran  for 
the  Legislature  on  his  return  from  the  Black  Hawk 
war,  in  1832,  one  of  the  successful  candidates  of 
that  year  was  this  indefatigable  circuit-rider.      He 


246  ABKAHAM    LINCOLN 

Chap.  XIV.  was  now  over  sixty  years  of  age,  in  the  height  of 
his  popularity,  and  in  all  respects  an  adversary  not 
to  be  despised.  His  career  as  a  preacher  began  at 
the  beginning  of  the  century  and  continued  for 
seventy  years.  He  was  the  son  of  one  of  the 
pioneers  of  the  West,  and  grew  up  in  the  rudest 
regions  of  the  border  land  between  Tennessee  and 
Kentucky.  He  represents  himself,  with  the  usual 
inverted  pride  of  a  class-leader,  as  having  been  a 
wild,  vicious  youth ;  but  the  catalogue  of  his 
crimes  embraces  nothing  less  venial  than  card- 
playing,  horse-racing,  and  dancing,  and  it  is  hard 
to  see  what  different  amusements  could  have  been 
found  in  southern  Kentucky  in  1801. 

This  course  of  dissipation  did  not  continue  long, 
as  he  was  "  converted  and  united  with  the  Ebenezer 
Methodist  Episcopal  Church  "  in  June  of  that  year, 
when  only  sixteen  years  old,  and  immediately 
developed  such  zeal  and  power  in  exhortation  that 
less  than  a  year  later  he  was  licensed  to  "  exercise 
his  gifts  as  an  exhorter  so  long  as  his  practice 
is  agreeable  to  the  gospel."  He  became  a  deacon 
at  twenty-one,  an  elder  at  twenty-three,  a  pre- 
siding elder  at  twenty-seven,  and  from  that  time 
his  life  is  the  history  of  his  church  in  the  West  for 
sixty  years.  He  died  in  1872,  eighty-seven  years 
of  age,  having  baptized  twelve  thousand  persons 
and  preached  fifteen  thousand  sermons.  He  was, 
and  will  always  remain,  the  type  of  the  backwoods 
preacher.  Even  in  his  lifetime  the  simple  story  of 
his  life  became  so  overgrown  with  a  net-work  of 
fable  that  there  is  little  resemblance  between  the 
simple,  courageous,  prejudiced  itinerant  of  his 
"  Autobiography  "  and  the  fighting,  brawling,  half- 


CAMPAIGN    FOR   CONGRESS  247 

civilized,  Protestant  Friar  Tuck  of  bar-room  and  chap.xiv. 
newspaper  legend. 

It  is  true  that  lie  did  not  always  discard  the 
weapons  of  the  flesh  in  his  combats  with  the 
ungodly,  and  he  felt  more  than  once  compelled  to 
leave  the  pulpit  to  do  carnal  execution  upon  the 
disturbers  of  the  peace  of  the  sanctuary ;  but  two 
or  three  incidents  of  this  sort  in  three-quarters  of  a 
century  do  not  turn  a  parson  into  a  pugilist.  He 
was  a  fluent,  self-confident  speaker,  who,  after  the 
habit  of  his  time,  addressed  his  discourses  more  to 
the  emotions  than  to  the  reason  of  his  hearers. 
His  system  of  future  rewards  and  punishments 
was  of  the  most  simple  and  concrete  character,  and 
formed  the  staple  of  his  sermons.  He  had  no 
patience  with  the  refinements  and  reticences  of 
modern  theology,  and  in  his  later  years  observed 
with  scorn  and  sorrow  the  progress  of  education 
and  scholarly  training  in  his  own  communion. 
After  listening  one  day  to  a  prayer  from  a  young 
minister  which  shone  more  by  its  correctness  than 
its    unction,  he  could  not   refrain  from    saying, 

"  Brother ,  three  prayers  like  that  would  freeze 

hell  over  !  "  —  a  consummation  which  did  not  com 
mend  itself  to  him  as  desirable.  He  often  visited 
the  cities  of  the  Atlantic  coast,  but  saw  little  in 
them  to  admire.  His  chief  pleasure  on  his  return 
was  to  sit  in  a  circle  of  his  friends  and  pour  out 
the  phials  of  his  sarcasm  upon  all  the  refinements 
of  life  that  he  had  witnessed  in  New  York  or 
Philadelphia,  which  he  believed,  or  affected  to 
believe,  were  tenanted  by  a  species  of  beings  al- 
together inferior  to  the  manhood  that  filled  the 
cabins  of  Kentucky  and  Illinois.      An  apocryphal 


248  ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

Chap.  XIV.  story  of  One  of  these  visits  was  often  told  of  him, 
which  pleased  him  so  that  he  never  contradicted  it : 
that  becoming  bewildered  in  the  vastness  of  a 
New  York  hotel,  he  procured  a  hatchet,  and  in 
pioneer  fashion  "  blazed  "  his  way  along  the  ma- 
hogany staircases  and  painted  corridors  from  the 
office  to  his  room.  With  all  his  eccentricities,  he 
was  a  devout  man,  conscientious  and  brave.  He 
lived  in  domestic  peace  and  honor  all  his  days,  and 
dying,  he  and  his  wife,  whom  he  had  married  al- 
most in  childhood,  left  a  posterity  of  129  direct 
descendants  to  mourn  them.^ 

With  all  his  devotion  to  the  cause  of  his  church, 
Peter  Cartwright  was  an  ardent  Jackson  politician, 
with  probably  a  larger  acquaintance  throughout 
the  district  than  any  other  man  in  it,  and  with  a 
personal  following  which,  beginning  with  his  own 
children  and  grandchildren  and  extending  through 
every  precinct,  made  it  no  holiday  task  to  defeat 
him  in  a  popular  contest.  But  Lincoln  and  his 
friends  went  energetically  into  the  canvass,  and 
before  it  closed  he  was  able  to  foresee  a  certain 
victory. 

An  incident  is  related  to  show  how  accurately  Lin- 
coln could  calculate  political  results  in  advance — 
a  faculty  which  remained  with  him  all  his  life.  A 
friend,  who  was   a  Democrat,  had  come  to  him 

1  The    impressive    manner    of  with  the  words,  "  the  past  three 

Mrs.  Cartwright's  death,  who  sur-  weeks  have  been  the  happiest  of 

vived  her  husband  a  few  years,  all  my  life  ;   I  am  waiting  for  the 

is  remembered  in  the  churches  chariot." 

of  Sangamon  County.      She  was  When  the   meeting  broke  up, 

attending  a  religious  meeting  at  she  did  not  rise   with   the   rest. 

Bethel  Chapel,  a  mile  from  her  The  minister  solemnly  said,  "  The 

house.     She  was  called  upon  "  to  chariot    has   arrived." — "Early 

give  her  testimony,"  which  she  Settlers  of  Sangamon  County," 

did  with  much  feeling,  concluding  by  John  Carroll  Power. 


CAMPAIGN    FOK    CONGKESS 


249 


early  in  the  canvass  and  had  told  him  he  wanted  chap.xiv. 
to  see  him  elected,  but  did  not  like  to  vote  against 
his  party ;  still  he  would  vote  for  him,  if  the  con- 
test was  to  be  so  close  that  every  vote  was  needed. 
A  short  time  before  the  election  Lincoln  said  to 
him :  "  I  have  got  the  preacher,  and  I  don't  want 
your  vote." 

The  election  was  held  in  August,  and  the  Whig 
candidate's  majority  was  very  large — 1511  in  the 
district,  where  Clay's  majority  had  been  only  914, 
and  where  Taylor's,  two  years  later,  with  all  the 
glamour  of  victory  about  him,  was  ten  less.  Lin- 
coln's majority  in  Sangamon  County  was  690, 
which,  in  view  of  the  standing  of  his  competitor, 
was  the  most  remarkable  proof  which  could  be 
given  of  his  personal  popularity ;  ^  it  was  the 
highest  majority  ever  given  to  any  candidate  in 
the  county  during  the  entire  period  of  Whig  as- 
cendancy until  Yates's  triumphant  campaign  of 
1852. 

This  large  vote  was  all  the  more  noteworthy 
because  the  Whigs  were  this  year  upon  the  un- 
popular side.  The  annexation  of  Texas  was  gen- 
erally approved  throughout  the  West,  and  those 
who  opposed  it  were  regarded  as  rather  lacking 
in  patriotism,  even  before  actual  hostilities  began. 
But  when  G-eneral  Taylor  and  General  Ampudia 
confronted  each  other  with  hostile  guns  across  the 


1  Stuart's  maj. 

over 

May             in  1836  in 

Sangamon 

Co.  was 

543 

it            li 

Douglas       "  1838  " 

295 

ti            i( 

Ralston       "  1840  " 

575 

Hardin's   " 

McDougall"  1843  " 

504 

Bakei-'s      " 

Calhoun       "  1844  " 

373 

Lincoln's  " 

Cartwright"  1846  " 

690 

Logan's     " 

Harris          "  1848  " 

263 

Yates's      " 

Harris         "  1850  " 

336 

250  ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

CHAP.  XIV.  Rio  Grrande,  and  still  more  after  the  brilliant  feat 
of  arms  by  which,  the  Americans  opened  the  war 
on  the  plain  of  Palo  Alto,  it  required  a  good  deal 
of  moral  courage  on  the  part  of  the  candidates  and 
voters  ahke  to  continue  their  attitude  of  disap- 
proval of  the  policy  of  the  G-overnment,  at  the 
same  time  that  they  were  shouting  paeans  over  the 
exploits  of  our  soldiers.  They  were  assisted,  it  is 
true,  by  the  fact  that  the  leading  Whigs  of  the 
State  volunteered  with  the  utmost  alacrity  and 
promptitude  in  the  military  service.  On  the  11th 
of  May,  Congi'ess  authorized  the  raising  of  fifty 
thousand  volunteers,  and  as  soon  as  the  intel- 
ligence reached  Illinois  the  daring  and  restless 
spirit  of  Hardin  leaped  forward  to  the  fate  which 
was  awaiting  him,  and  he  instantly  issued  a  call 
to  his  brigade  of  militia,  in  which  he  said :  "  The 
general  has  already  enrolled  himself  as  the  first 
volunteer  from  Illinois  under  the  requisition.  He 
is  going  whenever  ordered.  Who  will  go  with 
him?  He  confidently  expects  to  be  accompanied 
by  many  of  his  brigade."  The  quota  assigned  to 
Illinois  was  three  regiments;  these  were  quickly 
raised,^  and  an  additional  regiment  offered  by 
Baker  was  then  accepted.  The  sons  of  the  promi- 
nent Whigs  enlisted  as  private  soldiers;  David 
Logan  was  a  sergeant  in  Baker's  regiment.  A 
public  meeting  was  held  in  Springfield  on  the  29th 
of  May,  at  which  Mr.  Lincoln  delivered  what  was 
considered  a  thrilling  and  effective  speech  on  the 
condition  of  affairs,  and  the  duty  of  citizens  to 
stand  by  the  flag  of  the  nation  until  an  honorable 
peace  was  secured. 

1  The  colonels  were  Hardin,  Bissell,  and  Forman. 


CAMPAIGN    FOR    CONGRESS  251 

It  was  thought  probable,  and  would  have  been  chap.xiv. 
altogether  fitting,  that  either  Colonel  Hardin, 
Colonel  Baker,  or  Colonel  Bissell,  all  of  them  men 
of  intelligence  and  distinction,  should  be  appointed 
general  of  the  Illinois  Brigade,  but  the  Polk 
Administration  was  not  inclined  to  waste  so  im- 
portant a  place  upon  men  who  might  thereafter 
have  views  of  their  own  in  public  affairs.  The 
coveted  appointment  was  given  to  a  man  already- 
loaded  to  a  grotesque  degree  with  political  employ- 
ment— Mr.  Lincoln's  old  adversary,  James  Shields. 
He  had  left  the  position  of  Auditor  of  State  to 
assume  a  seat  on  the  Bench ;  retiring  from  this, 
he  had  just  been  appointed  Commissioner  of  the 
General  Land  Office.  He  had  no  military  experi- 
ence, and  so  far  as  then  known  no  capacity  for  the 
service;  but  his  fervid  partisanship  commended 
him  to  Mr.  Polk  as  a  safe  servant,  and  he  received 
the  commission,  to  the  surprise  and  derision  of  the 
State.  His  bravery  in  action  and  his  honorable 
wounds  at  Cerro  Gordo  and  Chapultepec  saved 
him  from  contempt  and  made  his  political  fortune. 

He  had  received  the  recommendation  of  the  Illi- 
nois Democrats  in  Congi^ess,  and  it  is  altogether 
probable  that  he  owed  his  appointment  in  great 
measure  to  the  influence  of  Douglas,  who  desired 
to  have  as  few  Democratic  statesmen  as  possible 
in  Springfield  that  winter.  A  Senator  was  to  be 
elected,  and  Shields  had  acquired  such  a  habit  of 
taking  all  the  offices  that  fell  vacant  that  it  was 
only  prudent  to  remove  him  as  far  as  convenient 
from  such  a  temptation.  The  election  was  held  in 
December,  and  Douglas  was  promoted  from  the 
House  of  Representatives  to  that  seat  in  the  Senate 


252  ABEAHAM    LINCOLN 

Chap.  XIV.  which  he  held  with  such  abihty  and  distinction  the 
rest  of  his  life. 

The  session  of  1846-7  opened  with  the  San- 
gamon district  of  Illinois  unrepresented  in  Con- 
gi'ess.  Baker  had  gone  with  his  regiment  to  Mexico. 
It  did  not  have  the  good  fortune  to  participate  in 
any  of  the  earlier  actions  of  the  campaign,  and 
his  fiery  spirit  chafed  in  the  enforced  idleness  of 
camp  and  garrison.  He  seized  an  occasion  which 
was  offered  him  to  go  to  Washington  as  bearer  of 
dispatches,  and  while  there  he  made  one  of  those 
sudden  and  dramatic  appearances  in  the  Capitol 
which  were  so  much  in  harmony  with  his  tastes 
and  his  character.  He  went  to  his  place  on  the 
2^*1^.^'^  floor,  and  there  delivered  a  bright,  interesting 
speech  in  his  most  attractive  vein,  calling  atten- 
tion to  the  needs  of  the  army,  disavowing  on  the 
part  of  the  Whigs  any  responsibility  for  the  war 
or  its  conduct,  and  adroitly  claiming  for  them  a 
full  share  of  the  credit  for  its  prosecution. 

He  began  by  thanking  the  House  for  its  kind- 
ness in  allowing  him  the  floor,  protesting  at  the 
same  time  that  he  had  done  nothing  to  deserve 
such  courtesy.  "  I  could  wish,"  he  said,  "  that  it 
had  been  the  fortune  of  the  gallant  Davis  ^  to  now 
stand  where  I  do  and  to  receive  from  gentlemen  on 
all  sides  the  congratulations  so  justly  due  to  him, 
and  to  listen  to  the  praises  of  his  brave  compeers. 
For  myself,  I  have,  unfortunately,  been  left  far  in 
the  rear  of  the  war,  and  if  now  I  venture  to  say  a 
word  in  behalf  of  those  who  have  endured  the 
severest  hardships  of  the  struggle,  whether  in  the 
blood-stained  streets   of  Monterey,   or  in    a  yet 

1  Jefferson  Davis,  who  was  with  the  army  in  Mexico. 


CAMPAIGN  FOE  CONGRESS  253 

sterner  form  on  the  banks  of  the  Rio  Grande,  I  chap.xiv. 
beg  you  to  believe  that  while  I  feel  this  a  most 
pleasant  duty,  it  is  in  other  respects  a  duty  full  of 
pain  ;  for  I  stand  here,  after  six  months'  service  as 
a  volunteer,  having  seen  no  actual  warfare  in  the 
field." 

Yet  even  this  disadvantage  he  turned  with  great 
dexterity  to  his  service.  He  reproached  Congress 
for  its  apathy  and  inaction  in  not  providing  for 
the  wants  of  the  army  by  reenforcements  and  sup- 
plies ;  he  flattered  the  troops  in  the  field,  and  paid 
a  touching  tribute  to  those  who  had  died  of  disease 
and  exposure,  without  ever  enjoying  the  sight  of 
a  battle-field,  and,  rising  to  lyric  enthusiasm,  he 
repeated  a  poem  of  his  own,  which  he  had  written 
in  camp  to  the  memory  of  the  dead  of  the  Fourth 
Illinois.^  He  could  not  refrain  from  giving  his  own 
party  all  the  credit  which  could  be  claimed  for  it, 
and  it  is  not  difficult  to  imagine  how  exasperating 
it  must  have  been  to  the  majority  to  hear  so  calm 

1  We  give  a  copy  of  these  lines,  not  on  account  of  their  intrinsic 
merit,  but  as  illustrating  the  versatility  of  the  lawyer,  orator,  and 
soldier  who  wrote  them. 

Where  rolls  the  rushing  Rio  Grande, 

How  peacefully  they  sleep! 
Far  from  their  native  Northern  land, 

Far  from  the  friends  who  weep. 
No  rolling  drums  disturb  their  rest 

Beneath  the  sandy  sod  ; 
The  mold  lies  heavy  on  each  breast, 

The  spirit  is  with  God. 

They  heard  their  country's  call,  and  came 

To  battle  for  the  right ; 
Each  bosom  filled  with  martial  flame, 

And  kindling  for  the  fight. 
Light  was  their  measured  footsteps  when 

They  moved  to  seek  the  foe  ; 
Alas  that  hearts  so  fiery  then 

Should  soon  be  cold  and  low ! 


254  ABKAHAM    LINCOLN 

Chap.  XIV.  an  assumption  of  superior  patriotism  on  the  part 
of  the  opposition  as  the  following:  "As  a  Whig  I 
still  occupy  a  place  on  this  floor ;  nor  do  I  think  it 
worth  while  to  reply  to  such  a  charge  as  that  the 
Whigs  are  not  friends  of  their  country  because 
many  of  them  doubt  the  justice  or  expediency  of 
the  present  war.  Surely  there  was  all  the  more 
evidence  of  the  patriotism  of  the  man  who,  doubt- 
ing the  expediency  and  even  the  entire  justice  of 
the  war,  nevertheless  supported  it,  because  it  was 
the  war  of  his  country.  In  the  one  it  might  be 
mere  enthusiasm  and  an  impetuous  temperament ; 
in  the  other  it  was  true  patriotism,  a  sense  of  duty. 
Homer  represents  Hector  as  strongly  doubting  the 
expediency  of  the  war  against  Greece.  He  gave  his 
advice  against  it ;  he  had  no  sympathy  with  Paris, 
whom  he  bitterly  reproached,  much  less  with 
Helen ;  yet,  when  the  war  came,  and  the  Grecian 
forces  were  marshaled  on  the  plain,  and  their 
crooked  keels  were  seen  cutting  the  sands  of  the 
Trojan  coast,  Hector  was  a  flaming  fire,  his  beam- 
ing helmet  was  seen  in  the  thickest  of  the  fight. 

They  did  not  die  in  eager  strife 

Upon  a  well-fought  field  ; 
Nor  from  the  red  wound  poured  their  life 

Where  cowering  foemen  yield. 
Death's  ghastly  shade  was  slowly  east 

Upon  each  manly  brow, 
But  calm  and  fearless  to  the  last, 

They  sleep  securely  now. 

Yet  shall  a  grateful  country  give 

Her  honors  to  their  name  ; 
In  kindred  hearts  their  memory  live, 

And  history  guard  their  fame. 
Not  unremembered  do  they  sleep 

Upon  a  foreign  strand, 
Though  near  their  graves  thy  wild  waves  sweep, 

O  rushing  Eio  Grande  ! 


CAMPAIGN  FOR  CONGEESS  255 

There  are  in  the  American  army  many  who  have  chap.xiv. 
the  spirit  of  Hector ;  who  strongly  doubt  the  pro- 
priety of  the  war,  and  especially  the  manner  of  its 
commencement;  who  yet  are  ready  to  pour  out 
their  hearts'  best  blood  like  water,  and  their  lives 
with  it,  on  a  foreign  shore,  in  defense  of  the 
American  flag  and  American  glory." 

Immediately  after  making  this  speech.  Baker 
increased  the  favorable  impression  created  by  it  by 
resigning  his  seat  in  Congress  and  hurrying  as  fast 
as  steam  could  carry  him  to  New  Orleans,  to  embark 
there  for  Mexico.  He  had  heard  of  the  advance  of 
Santa  Anna  upon  Saltillo,  and  did  not  wish  to  lose 
any  opportunity  of  fighting  which  might  fall  in  the 
way  of  his  regiment.  He  arrived  to  find  his  troops 
transferred  to  the  department  of  Greneral  Scott; 
and  although  he  missed  Buena  Vista,  he  took 
part  in  the  capture  of  Vera  Cruz,  and  greatly  dis- 
tinguished himself  at  Cerro  Gordo.  When  Shields 
was  wounded.  Baker  took  command  of  his  brigade, 
and  by  a  gallant  charge  on  the  Mexican  guns 
gained  possession  of  the  Jalapa  road,  an  act  by 
which  a  great  portion  of  the  fruits  of  that  victory 
were  harvested. 

His  resignation  left  a  vacancy  in  Congress,  and 
a  contest,  characteristic  of  the  politics  of  the  time, 
at  once  sprang  up  over  it.  The  rational  course 
would  have  been  to  elect  Lincoln,  but,  with  his 
usual  overstrained  delicacy,  he  declined  to  run, 
thinking  it  fair  to  give  other  aspirants  a  chance  for 
the  term  of  two  months.  The  Whigs  nominated  a 
respectable  man  named  Brown,  but  a  short  while 
before  the  election  John  Henry,  a  member  of  the 
State  Senate,  announced  himself  as  a  candidate. 


THE    BOUNDARIES    OF    TEXAS. 


This  map  gives  the  boundary  be- 
tween Mexico  and  the  United  States 
as  defined  by  the  treaty  of  1828;  the 
westerly  bank  of  the  Sabine  River 
from  its  mouth  to  the  32d  degree  of 
latitude;  thence  due  north  to  the 
Red  River,  following  the  course  of 
that  stream  to  the  100th  degree  of 
longitude  west  from  Greenwich; 
thence  due  north  to  the  Arkansas 
River,  and  running  along  its  south 
bank  to  its  source  in  the  Rocky  Moun- 
tains, near  the  place  where  Leadville 
now  stands ;  thence  due  north  to  the 
42d  parallel  of  latitude,  which  it  fol- 
lows to  the  Pacific  Ocean. 

On  the  west  wUl  be  seen  the  bound- 
aries claimed  by  Mexico  and  the 
United  States  after  the  anuexation 
of  Texas.  The  Mexican  authorities 
considered  the  western  boundary  of 


Texas  to  be  the  Nueces  River,  from 
mouth  to  source;  thence  by  an  in- 
definite line  to  the  Rio  Pecos,  and 
through  the  elevated  and  barren 
Llano  Estacado  to  the  source  of  the 
main  branch  of  the  Red  River,  and 
along  that  river  to  the  100th  meridian. 
The  United  States  adopted  the  Texan 
claim  of  the  Rio  Grande  del  Norte 
as  their  western  limit.  By  the  treaty 
of  peace  of  1848,  the  Mexicans  relin- 
quished to  the  United  States  the 
territory  between  the  Nueces  and 
the  Rio  Grande  del  Norte;  also 
the  territory  lying  between  the 
last-named  river  and  the  Pacific 
Ocean,  and  north  of  the  Gila 
River  and  the  southern  boimdary 
of  New  Mexico,  which  was  a  short 
distance  above  the  town  of  El 
Paso. 


S66 


ZACHAEY    TAYLOR. 


THE  M'^^ARY 


CAMPAIGN  FOK  CONGRESS  257 

and  appealed  for  votes  on  the  sole  ground  that  he  chap.  xiv. 
was  a  poor  man  and  wanted  the  place  for  the  mile- 
age. Brown,  either  recognizing  the  force  of  this 
plea,  or  smitten  with  a  sudden  disgust  for  a  service 
in  which  such  pleas  were  possible,  withdrew  from 
the  canvass,  and  Henry  got  his  election  and  his 
mileage. 


Vol.  I.— 17 


CHAPTEE    XV 


THE    THIRTIETH    CONGRESS 


Chap.  XV.  f  I  ^HE  Thirtieth  Congress  organized  on  the  6th  of 
-L  December,  1847.  Its  roll  contained  the  names 
of  many  eminent  men,  few  of  whom  were  less 
known  than  his  which  was  destined  to  a  fame  more 
wide  and  enduring  than  all  the  rest  together.  It 
was  Mr.  Lincoln's  sole  distinction  that  he  was  the 
only  Whig  member  from  Illinois.  He  entered  upon 
the  larger  field  of  work  which  now  lay  before  him 
without  any  special  diffidence,  but  equally  without 
elation.  Writing  to  his  friend  Speed  soon  after 
his  election  he  said :  "  Being  elected  to  Congi'ess, 
though  I  am  very  grateful  to  our  friends  for  having 
done  it,  has  not  pleased  me  as  much  as  I  ex- 
pected,"—  an  experience  not  unknown  to  most 
public  men,  but  probably  intensified  in  Lincoln's 
case  by  his  constitutional  melancholy.  He  went 
about  his  work  with  httle  gladness,  but  with  a 
dogged  sincerity  and  an  inflexible  conscience. 

It  soon  became  apparent  that  the  Whigs  were  to 
derive  at  least  a  temporary  advantage  from  the 
war  which  the  Democrats  had  brought  upon  the 
country,  although  it  was  destined  in  its  later  con- 
sequences to  sweep  the  former  party  out  of  exist- 
ence  and  exile  the  other  from  power  for  many 

268 


THE    THIRTIETH    CONGRESS  259 

years.  The  House  was  so  closely  divided  that  chap.xv. 
Lincoln,  writing  on  the  5th,  expressed  some  doubt 
whether  the  Whigs  could  elect  all  their  caucus 
nominees,  and  Mr.  Robert  C.  Winthrop  was  chosen 
Speaker  the  next  day  by  a  majority  of  one  vote. 
The  President  showed  in  his  message  that  he  was 
doubtful  of  the  verdict  of  Congress  and  the 
country  upon  the  year's  operations,  and  he  argued 
with  more  solicitude  than  force  in  defense  of  the 
proceedings  of  the  Administration  in  regard  to  the 
war  with  Mexico.  His  anxiety  was  at  once  shown 
to  be  well  founded.  The  first  attempt  made  by 
his  friends  to  indorse  the  conduct  of  the  Govern- 
ment was  met  by  a  stern  rebuke  from  the  House 
of  Representatives,  which  passed  an  amendment 
proposed  by  George  Ashmun  that  "the  war  had 
been  unnecessarily  and  unconstitutionally  com- 
menced by  the  President."  This  severe  declara- 
tion was  provoked  and  justified  by  the  persistent 
and  disingenuous  assertions  of  the  President  that 
the  preceding  Congress  had  "with  virtual  una- 
nimity "  declared  that  "  war  existed  by  the  act  of 
Mexico  "  —  the  truth  being  that  a  strong  minority 
had  voted  to  strike  out  those  words  from  the  pre- 
amble of  the  supply  bill,  but  being  outvoted  in 
this,  they  were  compelled  either  to  vote  for  pre- 
amble and  bill  together,  or  else  refuse  supplies  to 
the  army. 

It  was  not  surprising  that  the  Whigs  and  other 
opponents  of  the  war  should  take  the  first  oppor- 
tunity to  give  the  President  their  opinion  of  such 
a  misrepresentation.  The  standing  of  the  opposi- 
tion had  been  greatly  strengthened  by  the  very 
victories   upon  which  Mr.  Polk  had  confidently 


260  ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

Chap.  XV,  relied  for  his  vindication.  Both  our  armies  in 
Mexico  were  under  the  command  of  Whig  generals, 
and  among  the  subordinate  officers  who  had  dis- 
tinguished themselves  in  the  field,  a  full  share 
were  Whigs,  who,  to  an  extent  unusual  in  wars  of 
political  significance,  retained  their  attitude  of  hos- 
tility to  the  Administration  under  whose  orders 
they  were  ser\ing.  Some  of  them  had  returned  to 
their  places  on  the  floor  of  Congress  brandishing 
their  laurels  with  great  effect  in  the  faces  of  their 
opponents  who  had  talked  while  they  fought.^ 
When  we  number  the  names  which  leaped  into 
sudden  fame  in  that  short  but  sanguinary  war,  it 
is  surprising  to  find  how  few  of  them  sympathized 
with  the  party  who  brought  it  on,  or  with  the 
purposes  for  which  it  was  waged.  The  earnest 
opposition  of  Taylor  to  the  scheme  of  the  annexa- 
tionists did  not  hamper  his  movements  or  paralyze 

1  The  following  extract  from  a  in  the  vote  that  you  seem  dis- 
letter  of  Lincoln  to  his  partner,  satisfied  with.  The  latter,  the 
Mr.  Herndon,  who  had  criticized  history  of  whose  capture  with 
his  anti-war  votes,  gives  the  Cassius  Clay  you  well  know,  had 
names  of  some  of  the  Whig  sol-  not  arrived  here  when  that  vote 
diers  who  persisted  in  their  faith  was  given  ;  but,  as  I  understand, 
throughout  the  war:  "As  to  the  he  stands  ready  to  give  just  such 
Whig  men  who  have  participated  a  vote  whenever  an  occasion 
in  the  war,  so  far  as  they  have  shall  present.  Baker,  too,  who 
spoken  to  my  hearing,  they  do  is  now  here,  says  the  truth  is 
not  hesitate  to  denounce  as  un-  undoubtedly  that  way ;  and  when- 
just  the  President's  conduct  in  ever  he  shall  speak  out,  he  will 
the  beginning  of  the  war.  They  say  so.  Colonel  Doniphan,  too, 
do  not  suppose  that  such  denun-  the  favorite  Whig  of  Missouri, 
elation  is  directed  by  undying  and  who  overran  all  northern 
hatred  to  them,  as  '  the  Regis-  Mexico,  on  his  return  home,  in  a 
ter'  would  have  it  believed,  public  speech  at  St.  Louis,  con- 
There  are  two  such  Whigs  demned  the  Administration  in 
on  this  floor  (Colonel  Haskell  relation  to  the  war,  if  I  remem- 
and  Major  James).  The  former  ber.  G.  T.  M.  Davis,  who  has 
fought  as  a  colonel  by  the  side  of  been  through  almost  the  whole 
Colonel  Baker,  at  Cerro  Gordo,  war,  declares  in  favor  of  Mr. 
and  stands  side  by  side  with  me  Clay ; "  etc. 


THE    THIKTIETH    CONGRESS  261 

his  arm,  when  with  his  little  band  of  regulars  he  chap.  xv. 
beat  the  army  of  Arista  on  the  plain  of  Palo  Alto, 
and  again  in  the  precipitous  Resaca  de  la  Palma ; 
took  by  storm  the  fortified  city  of  Monterey, 
defended  by  a  greatly  superior  force ;  and  finally, 
with  a  few  regiments  of  raw  levies,  posted  among 
the  rocky  spurs  and  gorges  about  the  farm  of 
Buena  Vista,  met  and  defeated  the  best-led  and 
the  best-fought  army  the  Mexicans  ever  brought 
into  the  field,  outnumbering  him  more  than  four 
to  one.  It  was  only  natural  that  the  Whigs  should 
profit  by  the  glory  gained  by  Whig  valor,  no 
matter  in  what  cause.  The  attitude  of  the  opposi- 
tion— sure  of  their  advantage  and  exulting  in  it  — 
was  never  perhaps  more  clearly  and  strongly  set 
forth  than  in  a  speech  made  by  Mr.  Lincoln  near 
the  close  of  this  session.    He  said : 

As  General  Taylor  is  par  excellence  the  hero  of  the 
Mexican  war,  and  as  you  Democrats  say  we  Whigs  have 
always  opposed  the  war,  you  think  it  must  be  very  awk- 
ward and  embarrassing  for  us  to  go  for  General  Taylor. 
The  declaration  that  we  have  always  opposed  the  war  is 
true  or  false  accordingly  as  one  may  understand  the 
term  "  opposing  the  war."  If  to  say  "  the  war  was  un- 
necessarily and  unconstitutionally  commenced  by  the 
President"  be  opposing  the  war,  then  the  Whigs  have 
very  generally  opposed  it.  Whenever  they  have  spoken 
at  all  they  have  said  this ;  and  they  have  said  it  on  what 
has  appeared  good  reason  to  them  ;  the  marching  of  an 
army  into  the  midst  of  a  peaceful  Mexican  settlement,, 
frightening  the  inhabitants  away,  leaving  their  growing 
crops  and  other  property  to  destruction,  to  you  may 
appear  a  perfectly  amiable,  peaceful,  unprovoking  pro- 
cedure ;  but  it  does  not  appear  so  to  tis.  So  to  call  such 
an  act,  to  us  appears  no  other  than  a  naked,  impudent 
absurdity,  and  we  speak  of  it  accordingly.  But  if  when 
the  war  had  begun,  and  had  become  the  cause  of  the 


262  ABKAHAM    LINCOLN 

Chap.  XV.  country,  the  giving  of  our  money  and  our  blood,  in  com- 
mon with  yours,  was  support  of  the  war,  then  it  is  not 
true  that  we  have  always  opposed  the  war.  With  few 
individual  exceptions,  you  have  constantly  had  our  votes 
here  for  all  the  necessary  supplies.  And,  more  than  this, 
you  have  had  the  services,  the  blood,  and  the  lives  of  our 
political  brethren  in  every  trial,  and  on  every  field.  The 
beardless  boy  and  the  mature  man,  the  humble  and  the 
distinguished, —  you  have  had  them.  Through  suffering 
and  death,  by  disease  and  in  battle,  they  have  endured 
and  fought  and  fallen  with  you.  Clay  and  Webster  each 
gave  a  son,  never  to  be  returned.  From  the  State  of  my 
own  residence,  besides  other  worthy  but  less-known 
Whig  names,  we  sent  Marshall,  Morrison,  Baker,  and 
Hardin ;  they  all  fought,  and  one  fell,  and  in  the  fall  of 
that  one  we  lost  our  best  Whig  man.  Nor  were  the 
Whigs  few  in  number  or  laggard  in  the  day  of  danger. 
In  that  fearful,  bloody,  breathless  struggle  at  Buena 
Vista,  where  each  man's  hard  task  was  to  beat  back  five 
foes  or  die  himself,  of  the  five  high  officers  who  perished, 
four  were  Whigs. 

There  was  no  refuge  for  the  Democrats  after  the 
Whigs  had  adopted  Taylor  as  their  especial  hero, 
since  Scott  was  also  a  Whig  and  an  original  op- 
ponent of  the  war.  His  victories,  on  account  of 
the  apparent  ease  with  which  they  were  gained, 
have  never  received  the  credit  justly  due  them. 
The  student  of  military  history  will  rarely  meet 
with  narratives  of  battles  in  any  age  where  the 
actual  operations  coincide  so  exactly  with  the  orders 
issued  upon  the  eve  of  conflict,  as  in  the  official 
reports  of  the  wonderfully  energetic  and  successful 
campaign  in  which  General  Scott  with  a  handful  of 
men  renewed  the  memory  of  the  conquest  of  Cortes, 
in  his  triumphant  march  from  Vera  Cruz  to  the 
capital.  The  plan  of  the  battle  of  Cen-o  Gordo  was 
so  fully  earned  out  in  action  that  the  official  report 


THE    THIRTIETH    CONGRESS  263 

is  hardly  more  than  the  general  orders  translated  chap.  xv. 
from  the  future  tense  to  the  past.  The  story  of 
Chapultepec  has  the  same  element  of  the  marvelous 
in  it.  On  one  day  the  general  commanded  appar- 
ent impossibilities  in  the  closest  detail,  and  the 
next  day  reported  that  they  had  been  accom- 
plished. These  successes  were  not  cheaply  attained. 
The  Mexicans,  though  deficient  in  science  and  in 
military  intelligence,  fought  with  bravery  and 
sometimes  with  desperation.  The  enormous  per- 
centage of  loss  in  his  army  proves  that  Scott  was 
engaged  in  no  light  work.  He  marched  from 
Pueblo  with  about  10,000  men,  and  his  losses  in 
the  basin  of  Mexico  were  2703,  of  whom  383  were 
officers.  But  neither  he  nor  Tavlor  was  a  favorite 
of  the  Administration,  and  their  brilliant  success 
brought  no  gain  of  popularity  to  Mr.  Polk  and  his 
Cabinet. 

During  the  early  part  of  the  session  little  was 
talked  about  except  the  Mexican  war,  its  causes, 
its  prosecution,  and  its  probable  results.  In  these 
wordy  engagements  the  Whigs,  partly  for  the 
reasons  we  have  mentioned,  partly  through  their 
unquestionable  superiority  in  debate,  and  partly 
by  virtue  of  their  stronger  cause,  usually  had 
the  advantage.  There  was  no  distinct  line  of 
demarcation,  however,  between  the  two  parties. 
There  was  hardly  a  vote,  after  the  election  of 
Mr.  Winthrop  as  Speaker,  where  the  two  sides 
divided  according  to  their  partisan  nomencla- 
ture. The  question  of  slavery,  even  where  its 
presence  was  not  avowed,  had  its  secret  influence 
upon  every  trial  of  strength  in  Congress,  and 
Southern  Whigs  were  continually  found  sustaining 


264  ABKAHAM    LINCOLN 

Chap.  XV.  the  President,  and  New  England  Democrats  voting 
against  his  most  cherished  plans.  Not  even  all  the 
Democrats  of  the  South  could  be  relied  on  by  the 
Administration.  The  most  powerful  leader  of  them 
all  denounced  with  bitter  earnestness  the  conduct 
of  the  war,  for  which  he  was  greatly  responsible. 
Mr.  Calhoun,  in  an  attack  upon  the  President's 
policy,  January  4,  1848,  said :  "  I  opposed  the  war, 
not  only  because  it  might  have  been  easily  avoided; 
not  only  because  the  President  had  no  authority  to 
order  a  part  of  the  disputed  territory  in  possession 
of  the  Mexicans  to  be  occupied  by  our  troops ;  not 
only  because  I  believed  the  allegations  upon  which 
Congress  sanctioned  the  war  untrue,  but  from  high 
considerations  of  policy;  because  I  believed  it 
would  lead  to  many  and  serious  evils  to  the 
country  and  greatly  endanger  its  free  institutions." 
It  was  probably  not  so  much  the  free  institutions 
of  the  country  that  the  South  Carolina  Senator  was 
disturbed  about  as  some  others.  He  perhaps  felt 
that  the  friends  of  slavery  had  set  in  motion  a 
train  of  events  whose  result  was  beyond  their  ken. 
Mr.  Palfrey,  of  Massachusetts,  a  few  days  later  said 
with  as  much  sagacity  as  wit  that  "  Mr.  Calhoun 
thought  that  he  could  set  fire  to  a  barrel  of  gun- 
powder and  extinguish  it  when  half  consumed." 
In  his  anxiety  that  the  war  should  be  brought  to  an 
end,  Calhoun  proposed  that  the  United  States 
army  should  evacuate  the  Mexican  capital,  establish 
a  defensive  line,  and  hold  it  as  the  only  indemnity 
possible  to  us.  He  had  no  confidence  in  treaties, 
and  believed  that  no  Mexican  government  was 
capable  of  carrying  one  into  effect.     A  few  days 

"'"'i'^  ^^'  later,  in  a  running  debate,  Mr.  Calhoun  made  an 


THE    THIRTIETH    CONGRESS  265 

important  statement,  which  still  further  strength-  chap.  xv. 
ened  the  contention  of  the  Whigs.  He  said  that 
in  making  the  treaty  of  annexation  he  did  not 
assume  that  the  Rio  del  Norte  was  the  western 
boundary  of  Texas ;  on  the  contrary,  he  assumed 
that  the  boundary  was  an  unsettled  one  between 
Mexico  and  Texas;  and  that  he  had  intimated 
to  our  charge  d'affaires  that  we  were  prepared  to 
settle  the  boundary  on  the  most  liberal  terms! 
This  was  perfectly  in  accordance  with  the  position 
held  by  most  Democrats  before  the  Rio  Grrande 
boundary  was  made  an  article  of  faith  by  the  Pres- 
ident. C.  J.  IngersoU,  one  of  the  leading  men 
upon  that  side  in  Congress,  in  a  speech  three  years 
before  had  said :  "  The  stupendous  deserts  between 
the  Nueces  and  the  Bravo  rivers  are  the  natural 
boundaries  between  the  Anglo-Saxon  and  the 
Mam-itanian  races";  a  statement  which,  however 
faulty  from  the  point  of  view  of  ethnology  and 
physical  geography,  shows  clearly  enough  the  view 
then  held  of  the  boundary  question. 

The  discipline  of  both  parties  was  more  or  less 
relaxed  under  the  influence  of  the  slavery  question. 
It  was  singular  to  see  Mr.  McLane,  of  Baltimore, 
rebuking  Mr.  CHngman,  of  North  Carolina,  for 
mentioning  that  forbidden  subject  on  the  floor  of 
the  House  ;  Reverdy  Johnson,  a  Whig  from  Mary- 
land, administering  correction  to  John  P.  Hale,  an 
insubordinate  Democrat  from  New  Hampshire,  for 
the  same  offense,  and  at  the  time  screaming  that 
the  "blood  of  our  glorious  battle-fields  in  Mexico 
rested  on  the  hands  of  the  President " ;  Mr.  CHng- 
man challenging  the  House  with  the  broad  state- 
ment that   "it  is   a  misnomer  to  speak    of  our 


266  ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

Chap.  XV.  institution  at  the  South  as  pecuHar ;  ours  is  the 
general  system  of  the  world,  and  the  free  system  is 
the  peculiar  one,"  and  Mr.  Palfrey  dryly  responding 
that  slavery  was  natural  just  as  barbarism  was, 
just  as  fig-leaves  and  bare  skins  were  a  natural 
dress.  When  the  time  arrived,  however,  for  leav- 
ing off  grimacing  and  postui'ing,  and  the  House 
went  to  voting,  the  advocates  of  slavery  usually 
carried  the  day,  as  the  South,  Whigs  and  Demo- 
crats together,  voted  solidly,  and  the  North  was 
divided.  Especially  was  this  the  case  after  the 
arrival  of  the  treaty  of  peace  between  the  United 
States  and  Mexico,  which  was  signed  at  Guadalupe 
Hidalgo  on  the  2d  of  February  and  was  in  the 
hands  of  the  Senate  only  twenty  days  later.  It 
was  ratified  by  that  body  on  the  10th  of  March, 
with  a  series  of  amendments  which  were  at  once 
accepted  by  Mexico,  and  the  treaty  of  peace  was 
officially  promulgated  on  the  national  festival  of 
the  Fourth  of  July. 

From  the  hour  when  the  treaty  was  received  in 
Washington,  however,  the  discussion  as  to  the 
conduct  of  the  war  natui*ally  languished  ;  the  ablest 
speeches  of  the  day  before  became  obsolete  in  the 
presence  of  accomplished  facts  ;  and  the  interest  of 
Congress  promptly  turned  to  the  more  important 
subject  of  the  disposition  to  be  made  of  the  vast 
domain  which  our  arms  had  conquered  and  the 
treaty  confirmed  to  us.  No  one  in  America  then 
realized  the  magnitude  of  this  acquisition ;  its 
stupendous  physical  features  were  as  little  appre- 
ciated as  the  vast  moral  and  political  results  which 
were  to  flow  from  its  absorption  into  our  common- 
wealth.    It  was  only  known,  in  general  terms,  that 


THE    THIETIETH    CONGRESS  267 

our  new  possessions  covered  ten  degrees  of  latitude  chap.  xv. 
and  fifteen  of  longitude  ;  that  we  had  acquired,  in 
short,  six  hundred  and  thirty  thousand  square 
miles  of  desert,  mountain,  and  wilderness.  There 
was  no  dream,  then,  of  that  portentous  discovery 
which,  even  while  the  Senate  was  wrangling 
over  the  treaty,  had  converted  Captain  Sutter's 
mill  at  Coloma  into  a  mining  camp,  for  his  ruin 
and  the  sudden  up-building  of  many  colossal 
fortunes.  The  name  of  California,  which  conveys 
to-day  such  opulent  suggestions,  then  meant  noth- 
ing but  barrenness,  and  Nevada  was  a  name  as 
yet  unknown :  some  future  Congi'essman,  inno- 
cent of  taste  and  of  Spanish,  was  to  hit  upon  the 
absurdity  of  calling  that  land  of  silver  and  cactus, 
of  the  orange  and  the  sage-hen,  the  land  of  snow. 
But  imperfect  as  was  the  appreciation,  at  that  day, 
of  the  possibilities  which  lay  hidden  in  those  sunset 
regions,  there  was  still  enough  of  instinctive  greed 
in  the  minds  of  politicians  to  make  the  new  realm 
a  subject  of  lively  interest  and  intrigue.^  At  the 
first  showing  of  hands,  the  South  was  successful. 

In  the  Twenty-ninth  Congress  this  contest  had 
begun  over  the  spoils  of  a  victory  not  yet  achieved. 
President  Polk,  foreseeing  the  probability  of  an 

1  To  show  how  crude  and  vague  thousand  square  miles  of  this 
were  the  ideas  of  even  the  most  territory,  in  New  California,  has 
intelligent  men  in  relation  to  this  been  trod  by  the  foot  of  no  civil- 
great  empire,  we  give  a  few  lines  ized  being.  No  spy  or  pioneer  or 
from  the  closing  page  of  Ed-  vagrant  trapper  has  ever  returned 
ward  D,  Mansfield's  "  History  to  report  the  character  and 
of  the  Mexican  War,"  published  scenery  of  that  waste  and  lonely 
in  1849:  "But  will  the  greater  wilderness.  Two  hundred  thou- 
part  of  this  vast  space  ever  be  sand  square  miles  more  are  oc- 
inhabited  by  any  but  the  rest-  cupied  with  broken  mountains 
less  hunter  and  the  wander-  and  dreary  wilds.  But  little 
ing     trapper?       Two     hundred  remains  then  for  civilization." 


268  ABKAHAM    LINCOLN 

Chap.  XV.  acquisition  of  territory  by  treaty,  had  asked  Con- 
gress to  make  an  appropriation  for  that  purpose. 
A  bill  was  at  once  reported  in  that  sense,  appro- 
priating $30,000  for  the  expenses  of  the  negotiation 
and  $2,000,000  to  be  used  in  the  President's  discre- 
tion. But  before  it  passed,  a  number  of  Northern 
Democrats  ^  had  become  alarmed  as  to  the  disposi- 
tion that  might  be  made  of  the  territory  thus 
acquired,  which  was  now  free  soil  by  Mexican  law. 
After  a  hasty  consultation  they  agreed  upon  a 
proviso  to  the  bill,  which  was  presented  by  David 
Wilmot,  of  Pennsylvania.  He  was  a  man  of 
respectable  abilities,  who  then,  and  long  after- 
wards, held  a  somewhat  prominent  position  among 
the  public  men  of  his  State;  but  his  chief  claim  to 
a  place  in  history  rests  upon  these  few  lines  which 
he  moved  to  add  to  the  first  section  of  the  bill 
under  discussion : 

Provided,  That  as  an  express  and  fundamental  condi- 
tion to  the  acquisition  of  any  territory  from  the  Republic 
of  Mexico  by  the  United  States,  by  virtue  of  any  treaty 
that  may  be  negotiated  between  them,  and  to  the  use  by 
the  Executive  of  the  moneys  herein  appropriated,  neither 
slavery  nor  involuntary  servitude  shall  exist  in  any  part 
of  said  territory,  except  for  crime,  whereof  the  party 
shall  first  be  duly  convicted. 

This  condition  seemed  so  fair,  when  first  pre- 
sented to  the  Northern  conscience,  that  only  three 
members  from  the  free  States  voted  "  no  "  in  com- 
mittee. The  amendment  was  adopted —  eighty  to 
sixty-four  —  and  the  bill  reported  to  the  House.  A 
desperate  effort  was  then  made  by  the  pro-slavery 

1  Some  of  the  more  conspicuous  York ;  Wilmot,  of  Pennsylvania ; 
among  them  were  Hamlin,  of  Brinckerhoff,  of  Ohio,  and  McClel- 
Maine ;  Preston    King,   of    New    land,  of  Michigan. 


THE    THIKTIETH    CONGEESS  269 

members  to  kill  the  bill  for  the  purpose  of  destroy-   ghap.  xv. 
ing  the  amendment  with  it.    This  failed/  and  the 
bill,  as  amended,  passed  the  House ;  but  going  to 
the  Senate  a  few  hours  before  the  close  of  the  ses- 
sion, it  lapsed  without  a  vote. 

As  soon  as  the  war  was  ended  and  the  treaty  of 
peace  was  sent  to  the  Senate,  this  subject  assumed 
a  new  interest  and  importance,  and  a  resolution 
embodying  the  principle  of  the  Wilmot  proviso 
was  brought  before  the  House  by  Mr.  Harvey  Put- 
nam, of  New  York,  but  no  longer  with  the  same 
success.  The  South  was  now  solid  against  it,  and 
such  a  disintegration  of  conscience  among  North- 
ern Democrats  had  set  in,  that  whereas  only  three 
of  them  in  the  last  Congress  had  seen  fit  to 
approve  the  introduction  of  slavery  into  free  terri- 
tory, twenty-five  now  voted  with  the  South  against 
maintaining  the  existing  conditions  there.  The 
fight  was  kept  up  during  the  session  in  various 
places;  if  now  and  then  a  temporary  advantage 
seemed  gained  in  the  House,  it  was  lost  in  the 
Senate,  and  no  permanent  progress  was  made. 

What  we  have  said  in  regard  to  the  general  dis- 
cussion provoked  by  the  Mexican  war,  appeared 
necessary  to  explain  the  part  taken  by  Mr.  Lincoln 
on  the  floor.  He  came  to  his  place  unheralded  and 
without  any  special  personal  pretensions.   His  first 

1  In  this  important  and  signifi-  members  from  slave-holding 
cant  vote  all  the  Whigs  but  one  States,  except  Thomasson  and 
and  almost  all  the  Democrats,  Grider,  and  the  following  from 
from  the  free  States,  together  free  States,  Douglas  and  John  A. 
with  Wm.  P.  Thomasson  and  McClernand  from  Illinois,  Petit 
Henry  Grider,  Whigs  from  Ken-  from  Indiana,  and  Sehenek,  a 
tueky,  voted  against  killing  the  Whig,  from  Ohio,  in  all  seventy- 
amended  bill,  in  all  ninety-three,  nine. — Greeley's  "American  Con- 
On  the  other  side  were  all  the  flict,"  I.  p.  189. 


270 


ABEAHAM    LINCOLN 


Letter  to 

Will.  H. 

Herndon, 

January'  8, 

1848. 


CHAP.  XV.  participation  in  debate  can  best  be  described  in  his 
own  quaint  and  simple  words:  "As  to  speech-mak- 
ing, by  way  of  getting  the  hang  of  the  House,  I 
made  a  httle  speech  two  or  three  days  ago  on  a 
post-office  question  of  no  general  interest.  I  find 
speaking  here  and  elsewhere  about  the  same  thing. 
I  was  about  as  badly  scared,  and  no  worse,  as  I 
am  when  I  speak  in  court.  I  expect  to  make 
one  within  a  week  or  two  in  which  I  hope  to 
succeed  well  enough  to  wish  you  to  see  it."  He 
evidently  had  the  orator's  temperament  —  the 
mixture  of  dread  and  eagerness  which  all  good 
speakers  feel  before  facing  an  audience,  which 
made  Cicero  tremble  and  turn  pale  when  rising  in 
the  Forum.  The  speech  he  was  pondering  was 
made  only  four  days  later,  on  the  12th  of  January, 
and  few  better  maiden  speeches  —  for  it  was  his 
first  formal  discourse  in  Congress — have  ever  been 
made  in  that  House.  He  preceded  it,  and  prepared 
for  it,  by  the  introduction,  on  the  22d  of  December, 
of  a  series  of  resolutions  referring  to  the  President's 
persistent  assertions  that  the  war  had  been  begun 
by  Mexico,  "  by  invading  our  territory  and  shed- 
ding the  blood  of  our  citizens  on  our  own  soil," 
and  calling  upon  him  to  give  the  House  more 
specific  information  upon  these  points.  As  these 
resolutions  became  somewhat  famous  afterwards, 
and  were  relied  upon  to  sustain  the  charge  of  a 
lack  of  patriotism  made  by  Mr.  Douglas  against 
their  author,  it  may  be  as  well  to  give  them  here, 
especially  as  they  are  the  first  production  of  Mr. 
Lincoln's  pen  after  his  entry  upon  the  field  of  national 
politics.  We  omit  the  preamble,  which  consists  of 
quotations  from  the  President's  message. 


THE    THIRTIETH    CONGRESS  271 

Resolved  by  the  House  of  Representatives,  That  the  Presi-    chap  xv. 
dent  of  the  United  States  be  respectfully  requested  to 
inform  this  House  : 

First.  Whether  the  spot  on  which  the  blood  of  our 
citizens  was  shed,  as  in  his  messages  declared,  was  or  was 
not  within  the  territory  of  Spain,  at  least  after  the  treaty 
of  1819,  until  the  Mexican  revolution. 

Second.  Whether  that  spot  is  or  is  not  within  the  terri- 
tory which  was  wrested  from  Spain  by  the  revolutionary 
government  of  Mexico. 

Third.  Whether  that  spot  is  or  is  not  within  a  settle- 
ment of  people,  which  settlement  has  existed  ever  since 
long  before  the  Texas  revolution  and  until  its  inhabitants 
fled  before  the  approach  of  the  United  States  army. 

Fourth.  Whether  that  settlement  is  or  is  not  isolated 
from  any  and  all  other  settlements  by  the  Gulf  and  the 
Rio  Grande  on  the  south  and  west,  and  by  wide  unin- 
habited regions  in  the  north  and  east. 

Fifth.  Whether  the  people  of  that  settlement,  or  a 
majority  of  them,  or  any  of  them,  have  ever  submitted 
themselves  to  the  government  or  laws  of  Texas  or  of  the 
United  States,  by  consent  or  by  compulsion,  either  by  ac- 
cepting office,  or  voting  at  elections,  or  paying  tax,  or 
serving  on  juries,  or  having  process  served  upon  them,  or 
in  any  other  way. 

Sixth.  Whether  the  people  of  that  settlement  did  or  did 
not  flee  from  the  approach  of  the  United  States  army, 
leaving  unprotected  their  homes  and  their  growing  crops, 
before  the  blood  was  shed,  as  in  the  messages  stated ; 
and  whether  the  first  blood  so  shed  was  or  was  not  shed 
within  the  inclosure  of  one  of  the  people  who  had  thus 
fled  from  it. 

Seventh.  Whether  our  citizens  whose  blood  was  shed,  as 
in  his  messages  declared,  were  or  were  not  at  that  time  armed 
officers  and  soldiers,  sent  into  that  settlement  by  the  mil- 
itary order  of  the  President,  through  the  Secretary  of  War. 

Eighth.  Whether  the  military  force  of  the  United  States 
was  or  was  not  so  sent  into  that  settlement  after  General 
Taylor  had  more  than  once  intimated  to  the  War  Depart- 


272  ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

Chap.  XV.    ment  that  in  his  opinion  no  such  movement  was  neces- 
sary to  the  defense  or  protection  of  Texas. 

It  would  have  been  impossible  for  the  President 
to  answer  these  questions,  one  by  one,  according 
to  the  evidence  in  his  possession,  without  sur- 
rendering every  position  he  had  taken  in  his 
messages  for  the  last  two  years.  An  answer  was 
probably  not  expected ;  the  resolutions  were  never 
acted  upon  by  the  House,  the  vote  on  the  Ashmun 
proposition  having  sufficiently  indicated  the  view 
which  the  majority  held  of  the  President's 
precipitate  and  unconstitutional  proceeding.  But 
they  served  as  a  text  for  the  speech  which  Lincoln 
made  in  Committee  of  the  Whole,  which  deserves 
the  attentive  reading  of  any  one  who  imagines 
that  there  was  anything  accidental  in  the  ascend- 
ency which  he  held  for  twenty  years  among  the 
public  men  of  Illinois.  The  winter  was  mostly  de- 
voted to  speeches  upon  the  same  subject  from 
men  of  eminence  and  experience,  but  it  is  within 
bounds  to  say  there  was  not  a  speech  made  in  the 
House,  that  year,  superior  to  this  in  clearness  of 
statement,  severity  of  criticism  combined  with 
soberness  of  style,  or,  what  is  most  surprising, 
finish  and  correctness.  In  its  close,  clear  argu- 
ment, its  felicity  of  illustration,  its  restrained  yet 
burning  earnestness,  it  belongs  to  precisely  the 
same  class  of  addresses  as  those  which  he  made  a 
dozen  years  later.  The  ordinary  Congressman  can 
never  conclude  inside  the  limits  assigned  him ;  he 
must  beg  for  unanimous  consent  for  an  extension 
of  time  to  complete  his  sprawling  peroration.  But 
this  masterly  speech  covered  the  whole  ground  of 
the  controversy,  and  so  intent  was  Lincoln  on  not 


THE    THIRTIETH    CONGRESS  273 

exceeding  his  hour  that  he  finished  his  task,  to  his  chap,  xv. 
own  surprise,  in  forty-fiv^e  minutes.  It  is  an  ad- 
mirable discourse,  and  the  oblivion  which  overtook 
it,  along  with  the  volumes  of  other  speeches  made 
at  the  same  time,  can  be  accounted  for  only  by  re- 
membering that  the  Gruadalupe  Treaty  came  sud- 
denly in  upon  the  debate,  with  its  immense 
consequences  sweeping  forever  out  of  view  all 
consideration  of  the  causes  and  the  processes  which 
led  to  the  momentous  result. 

Lincoln's  speech  and  his  resolutions  were  ahke 
inspired  with  one  purpose :  to  correct  what  he 
considered  an  error  and  a  wrong;  to  rectify  a 
misrepresentation  which  he  could  not,  in  his  very 
nature,  permit  to  go  uncontradicted.  It  gratified 
his  offended  moral  sense  to  protest  against  the 
false  pretenses  which  he  saw  so  clearly,  and  it 
pleased  his  fancy  as  a  lawyer  to  bring  a  truth  to 
light  which  somebody,  as  he  thought,  was  trying 
to  conceal.  He  certainly  got  no  other  reward  for 
his  trouble.  His  speech  was  not  particularly  well 
received  in  Illinois.  His  own  partner,  Mr.  Herndon, 
a  young  and  ardent  man,  with  more  heart  than 
learning,  more  feeling  for  the  flag  than  for  inter- 
national justice,  could  not,  or  would  not,  understand 
Mr.  Lincoln's  position,  and  gave  him  great  pain  by 
his  letters.  Again  and  again  Lincoln  explained  to 
him  the  difference  between  approving  the  war  and 
voting  supplies  to  the  soldiers,  but  Herndon  was  ob- 
stinately obtuse,  and  there  were  many  of  his  mind. 

Lincoln's  convictions  were  so  positive  in  regard 

to  the  matter  that  any  laxity  of  opinion  among  his 

friends  caused  him  real  sufferijig.     In  a  letter  to 

the  Rev.  J.  M.  Peck,  who  had  written  a  defense 

Vol.  L— 18 


274  ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

Chap,  XV.  of  the  Administration  in  reference  to  the  origin 
of  the  war,  he  writes  :  this  "  disappoints  me, 
because  it  is  the  first  effort  of  the  kind  I  have 
known,  made  by  one  appearing  to  me  to  be  intelli- 
gent, right-minded,  and  impartial."  He  then  reviews 
some  of  the  statements  of  Mr.  Peck,  proving  their 
incorrectness,  and  goes  on  to  show  that  our  army- 
had  marched  under  orders  across  the  desert  of  the 
Nueces  into  a  peaceful  Mexican  settlement,  fright- 
ening away  the  inhabitants  ;  that  Fort  Brown  was 
built  in  a  Mexican  cotton-field,  where  a  young  crop 
was  growing ;  that  Captain  Thornton  and  his  men 
were  captured  in  another  cultivated  field.  He  then 
asks,  how  under  any  law,  human  or  divine,  this  can 
be  considered  "  no  aggression,"  and  closes  by  ask- 
ing his  clerical  correspondent  if  the  precept, 
"Whatsoever  ye  would  that  men  should  do  to 
you,  do  you  even  so  to  them,"  is  obsolete,  of  no 
force,  of  no  application  ?  This  is  not  the  anxiety 
of  a  politician  troubled  about  his  record.  He  is  not 
a  candidate  for  reelection,  and  the  discussion  has 
passed  by ;  but  he  must  stop  and  vindicate  the 
truth  whenever  assailed.  He  perhaps  does  not  see, 
certainly  does  not  care,  that  this  stubborn  devotion 
to  mere  justice  will  do  him  no  good  at  an  hour 
when  the  air  is  full  of  the  fumes  of  gunpowder ; 
when  the  returned  volunteers  are  running  for  con- 
stable in  every  county ;  when  so  good  a  Whig  as 
Mr.  Winthrop  gives,  as  a  sentiment,  at  a  public 
meeting  in  Boston,  "  Our  country,  however 
bounded,"  and  the  majority  of  his  party  are  pre- 
paring —  unmindful  of  Mr.  Polk  and  all  his  works 
—  to  reap  the  fruits  of  the  Mexican  war  by  making 
its  popular  hero  President. 


THE    THIKTIETH    CONGRESS 


275 


It  was  fortunate  for  Mr.  Lincoln  and  for  Whigs  chap.xv. 
like  him,  with  consciences,  that  General  Taylor  had 
occupied  so  unequivocal  an  attitude  in  regard  to 
the  war.  He  had  not  been  in  favor  of  the  march  to 
the  Rio  Grande,  and  had  resisted  every  suggestion 
to  that  effect  until  his  peremptory  orders  came.  In 
regard  to  other  political  questions,  his  position  was 
so  undefined,  and  his  silence  generally  so  discreet, 
that  few  of  the  Whigs,  however  exacting,  could 
find  any  difficulty  in  supporting  him.  Mr.  Lincoln 
did  more  than  tolerate  his  candidacy.  He  sup- 
ported it  with  energy  and  cordiality.  He  was  at 
last  convinced  that  the  election  of  Mr.  Clay  was 
impossible,  and  he  thought  he  could  see  that  the 
one  opportunity  of  the  Whigs  was  in  the  nomina- 
tion of  Taylor.  So  early  as  April  he  wrote  to  a 
friend :  "  Mr.  Clay's  chance  for  an  election  is  just 
no  chance  at  all.  He  might  get  New  York,  and 
that  would  have  elected  in  1844,  but  it  will  not 
now  because  he  must  now,  at  the  least,  lose  Ten- 
nessee, which  he  had  then,  and  in  addition  the 
fifteen  new  votes  of  Florida,  Texas,  Iowa,  and 
Wisconsin."  Later  he  wrote  to  the  same  friend 
that  the  nomination  took  the  Democrats  "  on  the 
blind  side.  It  turns  the  war  thunder  against  them. 
The  war  is  now  to  them  the  gallows  of  Haman, 
which  they  built  for  us,  and  on  which  they  are 
doomed  to  be  hanged  themselves." 

At  the  same  time  he  bated  no  jot  of  his  opposi- 
tion to  the  war,  and  urged  the  same  course  upon 
his  friends.  To  Linder,  of  Illinois,  he  wrote :  "  In 
law,  it  is  good  policy  to  never  plead  what  you  need 
not,  lest  you  oblige  yourself  to  prove  what  you  can- 
not."   He  then  counseled  him  to  go  for  Taylor,  but 


J.  G. 
Holland, 
"  Life  of 
Lincoln," 

p.  118 


276  ABKAHAM    LINCOLN 

Chap.  XV.  to  avoid  approving  Polk  and  the  war,  as  in  the 
former  case  he  would  gain  Democratic  votes  and  in 
the  latter  he  would  lose  with  the  Whigs.  Linder 
answered  him,  wanting  to  know  if  it  would  not  be 
as  easy  to  elect  Taylor  without  opposing  the  war, 
which  drew  from  Lincoln  the  angry  response  that 
silence  was  impossible ;  the  Whigs  must  speak, 
"  and  their  only  option  is  whether  they  will,  when 
they  speak,  tell  the  truth  or  tell  a  foul  and  villain- 
ous falsehood." 
When  the  Whig  Convention  came  together  in 
1848. '  Philadelphia,  the  differences  of  opinion  on  points 
of  principle  and  policy  were  almost  as  numerous 
as  the  delegates.  The  unconditional  Clay  men 
rallied  once  more  and  gave  their  aged  leader 
97  votes  to  111  which  Taylor  received  on  the 
first  ballot.  Scott  and  Webster  had  each  a 
few  votes;  but  on  the  foui*th  ballot  the  soldier 
of  Buena  Vista  was  nominated,  and  Millard  Fill- 
more placed  in  the  line  of  succession  to  him. 
It  was  impossible  for  a  body  so  heterogeneous  to 
put  forward  a  distinctive  platform  of  principles. 
An  attempt  was  made  to  force  an  expression  in 
regard  to  the  Wilmot  proviso,  but  it  was  never 
permitted  to  come  to  a  vote.  The  convention  was 
determined  that  "  Old  Rough  and  Ready,"  as  he 
was  now  universally  nicknamed,  should  run  upon 
his  battle-flags  and  his  name  of  Whig  —  although 
he  cautiously  called  himself  "  not  an  ultra  Whig." 
The  nomination  was  received  with  gi^eat  and  noisy 
demonstrations  of  adhesion  from  every  quarter. 
Lincoln,  writing  a  day  or  two  after  his  return  from 
the  convention,  said  :  "  Many  had  said  they  would 
not  abide  the  nomination  of  Taylor ;  but  since  the 


THE    THIRTIETH    CONGRESS  277 

deed  has  been  done  they  are  fast  falling  in,  and  in  chip.  xv. 
my  opinion  we  shall  have  a  most  overwhelming, 
glorious  triumph.  One  unmistakable  sign  is  that 
all  the  odds  and  ends  are  with  us, —  Barnburners, 
native  Americans,  Tyler  men,  disappointed  office- 
seeking  Loco-focos,  and  the  Lord  knows  what. 
This  is  important,  if  in  nothing  else,  in  showing 
which  way  the  wind  blows." 

Greneral  Taylor's  chances  for  election  had  been 
greatly  increased  by  what  had  taken  place  at  the 
Democratic  Convention,  a  fortnight  before.  Gen- 
eral Cass  had  been  nominated  for  the  Presidency, 
but  his  militia  title  had  no  glamour  of  carnage 
about  it,  and  the  secession  of  the  New  York  Anti- 
slavery  "  Barnburners  "  from  the  convention  was  a 
presage  of  disaster  which  was  fulfilled  in  the  fol- 
lowing August  by  the  assembling  of  the  recusant 
delegates  at  Buffalo,  where  they  were  joined  by 
a  large  number  of  discontented  Democrats  and 
"Liberty"  men,  and  the  Free-soil  party  was  organ- 
ized for  its  short  but  effective  mission.  Martin 
Van  Buren  was  nominated  for  President,  and 
Charles  Francis  Adams  was  associated  with  him 
on  the  ticket.  The  great  superiority  of  caliber 
shown  in  the  nominations  of  the  mutineers  over 
the  regular  Democrats  was  also  apparent  in  the 
roll  of  those  who  made  and  sustained  the  revolt. 
When  Salmon  P.  Chase,  Preston  King,  the  Van 
Burens,  John  P.  Hale,  William  CuUen  Bryant, 
David  Wilmot,  and  their  like  went  out  of  their 
party,  they  left  a  vacancy  which  was  never  to  be 
filled. 

It  was  perhaps  an  instinct  rather  than  any  clear 
spirit  of  prophecy  which   drove   the  antislavery 


278  ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

Chap.  XV.  Democrats  away  from  their  affiliations  and  kept  the 
Whigs,  for  the  moment,  substantially  together.  So 
far  as  the  authorized  utterances  of  their  conventions 
were  concerned,  there  was  little  to  choose  between 
them.  They  had  both  evaded  any  profession  of  faith 
in  regard  to  slavery.  The  Democrats  had  rejected 
the  resolution  offered  by  Yancey  committing  them 
to  the  doctrine  of  "  non-interference  with  the 
rights  of  property  in  the  territories,"  and  the 
Whigs  had  never  allowed  the  Wilmot  proviso  to 
be  voted  upon.  But  nevertheless  those  Democrats 
who  felt  that  the  time  had  come  to  put  a  stop  to 
the  aggression  of  slavery,  generally  threw  off  their 
partisan  allegiance,  and  the  most  ardent  of  the 
antislavery  Whigs,  —  with  some  exceptions  it  is 
true,  especially  in  Ohio  and  in  Massachusetts, 
where  the  strength  of  the  "  Conscience  Whigs," 
led  by  Sumner,  the  Adamses,  and  Henry  Wilson, 
was  important, — thought  best  to  remain  with  their 
party.  General  Taylor  was  a  Southerner  and  a 
slaveholder.  In  regard  to  all  questions  bearing 
upon  slavery,  he  observed  a  discretion  in  the 
canvass  which  was  almost  ludicrous.'  Yet  there 
was  a  well-nigh  universal  impression  among  the 
antislavery  Whigs  that  his  administration  would 
be  under  influences  favorable  to  the  restriction  of 

lit  is  a  tradition  that  a  planter  done  credit  to  a  diplomatist,  and 
once  wrote  to  Mm:  "I  have  would  have  proved  exceedingly- 
worked  hard  and  been  frugal  all  useful  to  Mr.  Clay,  responded, 
my  life,  and  the  results  of  my  "Sir:  I  have  the  honor  to  in- 
industry  have  mainly  taken  the  form  you  that  I  too  have  been  all 
form  of  slaves,  of  whom  I  own  my  life  industrious  and  frugal, 
about  a  hundred.  Before  I  vote  and  that  the  fruits  thereof 
for  President  I  want  to  be  sure  are  mainly  invested  in  slaves,  of 
that  the  candidate  I  support  will  whom  I  own  three  hundred, 
not  so  act  as  to  divest  me  of  my  Yours,  etc." — Horace  Greeley, 
property."  To  which  the  general,  "  American  Conflict,"  Volume  I., 
with  a  dexterity  that  would  have  p.  193. 


THE    THIETIETH    CONGEESS  279 

slavery.  Clay,  Webster,  and  Seward,  all  of  whom  chap.xv. 
were  agreed  at  that  time  against  any  extension  of 
the  area  of  that  institution,  supported  him  with 
more  or  less  cordiality.  Webster  insisted  upon  it 
that  the  Whigs  were  themselves  the  best  "Free- 
soilers,"  and  for  them  to  join  the  party  called  by 
that  distinctive  name  would  be  merely  putting  Mr. 
Van  Bm*en  at  the  head  of  the  Whig  party.  Mr. 
Seward,  speaking  for  Taylor  at  Cleveland,  took  ^isis. 
still  stronger  ground,  declaring  that  slavery  "must 
be  abolished";  that  "freedom  and  slavery  are  two 
antagonistic  elements  of  society  in  America  " ;  that 
"the  party  of  freedom  seeks  complete  and  uni- 
versal emancipation."  No  one  then  seems  to  have 
foreseen  that  the  Whig  party  —  then  on  the  eve  of 
a  gi*eat  victory — was  so  near  its  dissolution,  and 
that  the  bolting  Democrats  and  the  faithful  Whigs 
were  alike  engaged  in  laying  the  foundations  of  a 
party  which  was  to  glorify  the  latter  half  of  the 
century  with  achievements  of  such  colossal  and 
enduring  importance. 

There  was  certainly  no  doubt  or  misgiving  in 
the  mind  of  Lincoln  as  to  that  future,  which,  if  he 
could  have  foreseen  it,  would  have  presented  so 
much  of  terrible  fascination.  He  went  into  the 
campaign  with  exultant  alacrity.  He  could  not 
even  wait  for  the  adjournment  of  Congress  to 
begin  his  stump-speaking.  Following  the  bad 
example  of  the  rest  of  his  colleagues,  he  obtained 
the  floor  on  the  27th  of  July,  and  made  a  long, 
brilliant,  and  humorous  speech  upon  the  merits  of 
the  two  candidates  before  the  people.  As  it  is  the 
only  one  of  Lincoln's  popular  speeches  of  that 
period  which  has  been  preserved  entire,  it  should 


280  ABKAHAM    LINCOLN 

Chap.  XV.  be  read  by  those  who  desire  to  understand  the 
manner  and  spiiit  of  the  politics  of  1848.  What- 
ever faults  of  taste  or  of  method  may  \)e  found 
in  it,  considering  it  as  a  speech  delivered  in  the 
House  of  Representatives,  with  no  more  propriety 
or  pertinence  than  hundreds  of  others  which  have 
been  made  under  like  circumstances,  it  is  an 
extremely  able  speech,  and  it  is  by  itself  enough 
to  show  how  remarkablv  effective  he  must  have 
been  as  a  canvasser  in  the  remoter  districts  of  his 
State  where  means  of  intellectual  excitement  were 
rare  and  a  political  meeting  was  the  best-known 
form  of  public  entertainment. 

He  begins  by  making  a  clear,  brief,  and  dignified 
defense  of  the  position  of  Taylor  upon  the  question 
of  the  proper  use  of  the  veto ;  he  then  avows  with 
characteristic  candor  that  he  does  not  know  what 
General  Taylor  will  do  as  to  slavery ;  he  is  himself 
"  a  Northern  man,  or  rather  a  Western  free-State 
man,  with  a  constituency  I  believe  to  be,  and  with 
personal  feelings  I  know  to  be,  against  the  ex- 
tension of  slavery"  (a  definition  in  which  his 
caution  and  his  honesty  are  equally  displayed),  and 
he  hopes  General  Taylor  would  not,  if  elected, 
do  anything  against  its  restriction ;  but  he  would 
vote  for  him  in  any  case,  as  offering  better 
guarantees  than  Mr.  Cass.  He  then  enters  upon  an 
analysis  of  the  position  of  Cass  and  his  party 
which  is  full  of  keen  observation  and  political  in- 
telligence, and  his  speech  goes  on  to  its  rollicking 
close  with  a  constant  succession  of  bright,  witty, 
and  striking  passages  in  which  the  orator's  own 
conviction  and  enjoyment  of  an  assured  success  is 
not  the  least  remarkable  feature.     A  few  weeks 


THE    THIRTIETH    CONGRESS 


281 


later  Congress  adjourned,  and  Lincoln,  without  chap.xv. 
returning  home,  entered  upon  the  canvass  in  New 
England,^  and  then  going  to  Illinois,  spoke  night 
and  day  until  the  election.  When  the  votes  were 
counted,  the  extent  of  the  defection  among  the 
Northern  Whigs  and  Democrats  who  voted  for 
Van  Buren  and  among  the  Southern  Democrats 
who  had  been  beguiled  by  the  epaulets  of  Taylor, 
was  plainly  seen.  The  bolting  "  Barnburners  "  had 
given  New  York  to  Taylor ;  the  Free-Soil  vote  in 
Ohio,  on  the  other  hand,  had  thrown  that  State  to 
Cass.  Van  Buren  carried  no  electors,  but  his 
popular  vote  was  larger  in  New  York  and  Mas- 
sachusetts than  that  of  Cass.     The  entire  popular 


1  Thurlow  Weed  says  in  his 
Autobiography,  Vol.  I.,  p.  603  : 
"I  had  supposed,  until  we  now 
met,  that  1  had  never  seen  Mr. 
Lincoln,  having  forgotten  that  in 
the  fall  of  1848,  when  he  took 
the  stump  in  New  England,  he 
called  upon  me  at  Albany,  and 
that  we  went  to  see  Mr.  Fillmore, 
who  was  then  the  Whig  candidate 
for  Vice-President."  The  New 
York  "  Tribune,"  September  14, 
1848,  mentions  Mr.  Lincoln  as 
addressing  a  great  Whig  meet- 
ing in  Boston,  September  12. 
The  Boston  "Atlas"  refers  to 
speeches  made  by  him  at  Dor- 
chester, September  1 6  ;  at  Chel- 
sea, September  17;  by  Lincoln 
and  Seward  at  Boston,  September 
22,  on  which  occasion  the  report 


David  Sears,  says,  the  most 
brilliant  of  Mr.  Lincoln's  speeches 
in  this  campaign  "  was  delivered 
at  Worcester,  September  13, 
1848,  when,  after  taking  for  his 
text  Mr,  Webster's  remark  that 
the  nomination  of  Martin  Van 
Buren  for  the  Presidency  by  a 
professed  antislavery  party  could 
fitly  be  regarded  only  as  a  trick 
or  a  joke,  Mr.  Lincoln  proceeded 
to  declare  that  of  the  three 
parties  then  asking  the  confidence 
of  the  country,  the  new  one  had 
less  of  principle  than  any  other, 
adding,  amid  shouts  of  laughter, 
that  the  recently  constructed 
elastic  Free-Soil  platform  re- 
minded him  of  nothing  so  much 
as  the  pair  of  trousers  offered  for 
sale  by  a  Yankee  peddler  which 


says:    "Mr.  Lincoln,  of  Illinois,     were    "large    enough    for    any 


next  came  forward,  and  was  re- 
ceived with  great  applause.  He 
spoke  about  an  hour  and  made  a 
powerful  and  convincing  speech 
which  was  cheered  to  the  echo." 
Mr.  Robert  C.  Winthrop,  Jr.,  in 
his  recent  memoir  of  the  Hon. 


man  and  small  enough   for  any 
boy.'" 

It  is  evident  that  he  considered 
Van  Buren,  in  Massachusetts  at 
least,  a  candidate  more  to  be 
feared  than  Cass,  the  regular 
Democratic  nominee. 


282  ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

Chap.  XV.  vote  (cxclusive  of  South  Carolina,  which  chose  its 
electors  by  the  Legislature)  was  for  Taylor 
1,360,752;  for  Cass  1,219,962;  for  Van  Buren 
291,342.  Of  the  electors,  Taylor  had  163  and 
Cass  137. 


CHAPTEE   XVI 


A    FORTUNATE    ESCAPE 


1818. 


WHEN  Congress  came  together  again  in  chap.xvl 
December,  there  was  such  a  change  in  the 
temper  of  its  members  that  no  one  would  have 
imagined,  on  seeing  the  House  divided,  that  it  was 
the  same  body  which  had  assembled  there  a  year 
before.  The  election  was  over ;  the  Whigs  were  to 
control  the  Executive  Department  of  the  Govern- 
ment for  four  years  to  come ;  the  members  them- 
selves were  either  reelected  or  defeated ;  and  there 
was  nothing  to  prevent  the  gratification  of  such 
private  feelings  as  they  might  have  been  suppress- 
ing during  the  canvass  in  the  interest  of  their 
party.  It  was  not  long  before  some  of  the  North- 
ern Democrats  began  to  avail  themselves  of  this 
new  liberty.  They  had  returned  burdened  with  a 
sense  of  wrong.  They  had  seen  their  party  put  in 
deadly  peril  by  reason  of  its  fidelity  to  the  South, 
and  they  had  seen  how  little  their  Southern 
brethren  cared  for  their  labors  and  sacrifices,  in 
the  enormous  gains  which  Taylor  had  made  in  the 
South,  carrying  eight  out  of  fifteen  slave  States. 
They  were  in  the  humor  to  avenge  themselves  by  a 
display  of  independence  on  their  own  account,  at 
the  first  opportunity.      The  occasion  was  not  long 

283 


284  ABEAHAM    LINCOLN 

Chap.  XVI.  in  presenting  itseK.  A  few  days  after  Congress 
opened,  Mr.  Root,  of  Ohio,  introduced  a  resolution 
instructing  the  Committee  on  Territories  to  bring 
in  a  bill  "  with  as  little  delay  as  practicable  "  to 
provide  territorial  governments  for  California  and 
New  Mexico,  which  should  "  exclude  slavery  there- 
from." This  resolution  would  have  thrown  the 
same  House  into  a  panic  twelve  months  before,  but 
now  it  passed  by  a  vote  of  108  to  80  —  in  the 
former  number  were  all  the  Whigs  from  the  North 
and  all  the  Democrats  but  eight,  and  in  the  latter 
the  entire  South  and  the  eight  referred  to. 

The  Senate,  however,  was  not  so  susceptible  to 
popular  impressions,  and  the  bill,  prepared  in 
obedience  to  the  mandate  of  the  House,  never  got 
farther  than  the  desk  of  the  Senate  Chamber. 
The  pro-slavery  majority  in  that  body  held  firmly 
together  till  near  the  close  of  the  session,  when 
they  attempted  to  bring  in  the  new  territories  with- 
out any  restriction  as  to  slavery,  by  attaching 
what  is  called  "a  rider"  to  that  effect  to  the  Civil 
Appropriation  Bill.  The  House  resisted,  and 
returned  the  bill  to  the  Senate  with  the  rider  un- 
horsed. A  committee  of  confereuce  failed  to  agree. 
Mr.  McClernand,  a  Democrat  from  Illinois,  then 
moved  that  the  House  recede  from  its  disagreement, 
which  was  carried  by  a  few  Whig  votes,  to  the 
dismay  of  those  who  were  not  in  the  secret,  when 
Richard  W.  Thompson  (who  was  thirty  years  after- 
wards Secretary  of  the  Navy)  instantly  moved 
that  the  House  do  concur  with  the  Senate,  with 
this  amendment,  that  the  existing  laws  of  those 
territories  be  for  the  present  and  until  Congress 
should  amend  them,  retained.      This  would  secure 


A    FOKTUNATE    ESCAPE  285 

them  to  freedom,  as  slavery  had  long  ago  been  chap.xvi. 
abolished  by  Mexico.  This  amendment  passed, 
and  the  Senate  had  to  face  the  many-pronged 
dilemma,  either  to  defeat  the  Appropriation  Bill,  or 
to  consent  that  the  territories  should  be  organized 
as  free  communities,  or  to  swallow  their  protesta- 
tions that  the  territories  were  in  sore  need  of 
government  and  adjourn,  leaving  them  in  the 
anarchy  they  had  so  feelingly  depicted.  They 
chose  the  last  as  the  least  dangerous  course,  and 
passed  the  Appropriation  Bill  in  its  original  form. 
Mr.  Lincoln  took  little  part  in  the  discussions 
incident  to  these  proceedings;  he  was  constantly 
in  his  seat,  however,  and  voted  generally  with  his 
party,  and  always  with  those  opposed  to  the  exten- 
sion of  slavery.  He  used  to  say  that  he  had  voted 
for  the  Wilmot  proviso,  in  its  various  phases, 
forty-two  times.  He  left  to  others,  however,  the 
active  work  on  the  floor.  His  chief  preoccupation 
during  this  second  session  was  a  scheme  which 
links  itself  characteristically  with  his  first  protest 
against  the  proscriptive  spirit  of  slavery  ten  years 
before  in  the  Illinois  Legislature  and  his  immortal 
act  fifteen  years  afterwards  in  consequence  of 
which  American  slavery  ceased  to  exist.  He  had 
long  felt  in  common  with  many  others  that  the 
traffic  in  human  beings  under  the  very  shadow  of 
the  Capitol  was  a  national  scandal  and  reproach. 
He  thought  that  Congress  had  the  power  under  the 
Constitution  to  regulate  or  prohibit  slavery  in  all 
regions  under  its  exclusive  jurisdiction,  and  he 
thought  it  proper  to  exercise  that  power  with  due 
regard  to  vested  rights  and  the  general  welfare. 
He  therefore  resolved  to  test  the  question  whether 


286  ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

Chap.  XVI.  it  Were  possible  to  remove  from  the  seat  of  govern- 
ment this  stain  and  offense. 

He  proceeded  carefully  and  cautiously  about  it, 

after  his  habit.    When  he  had  di*awn  up  his  plan, 

he  took  counsel  with  some  of  the  leading  citizens 

of  Washington  and  some  of  the  more  prominent 

members  of  Congi'ess  before  bringing  it  forward. 

Gidcungs's   S^i^  ^^^^  obtained  the  cordial  approval  of  Colonel 

^uVry'iX'   Seaton,  the  Mayor  of  Washington,  whom  Mr.  Lin- 

^pubYished"  coin  had  consulted  as  the  representative   of  the 

"'cieve-     intelligent  slave-holding  citizens   of  the   District, 

1  fill  (I   Post  "  _~ 

March  3i',  and  of  Joshua  R.  Giddings,  whom  he  regarded  as 
the  leading  abolitionist  in  Congress,  a  fact  which 
sufficiently  proves  the  practical  wisdom  with  which 
he  had  reconciled  the  demands  of  right  and  ex- 
pediency. In  the  meantime,  however,  Mr.  Gott,  a 
member  from  New  York,  had  introduced  a  resolu- 
tion with  a  rhetorical  preamble  directing  the  proper 
committee  to  bring  in  a  bill  prohibiting  the  slave- 
trade  in  the  District.  This  occasioned  great  excite- 
ment, much  caucusing  and  threatening  on  the  part 
of  the  Southern  members,  but  nothing  else.  In  the 
opinion  of  the  leading  antislavery  men,  Mr.  Lin- 
coln's bill,  being  at  the  same  time  more  radical  and 
more  reasonable,  was  far  better  calculated  to  effect 
its  purpose.  Giddings  says  in  his  diary :  "  This 
evening  (January  11),  our  whole  mess  remained  in 
the  dining-room  after  tea,  and  conversed  upon  the 
subject  of  Mr.  Lincoln's  bill  to  abolish  slavery.  It 
was  approved  by  all ;  I  believe  it  as  good  a  bill  as 
we  could  get  at  this  time,  and  am  willing  to  pay 
for  slaves  in  order  to  save  them  from  the  Southern 
market,  as  I  suppose  every  man  in  the  District 
would  sell  his  slaves  if  he  saw  that  slavery  was 


A    FOETUNATE    ESCAPE  287 

to  be  abolished."  Mr.  Lincoln  therefore  moved,  on  chap.xvi. 
the  16th  of  January,  as  an  amendment  to  Gott's 
proposition,  that  the  committee  report  a  bill  for 
the  total  abolition  of  slavery  in  the  District  of  Co- 
lumbia, the  terms  of  which  he  gave  in  full.  They 
were  in  substance  the  following : 

The  first  two  sections  prohibit  the  bringing  of 
slaves  into  the  district  or  selling  them  out  of  it, 
provided,  however,  that  officers  of  the  Grovernment, 
being  citizens  of  slave-holding  States,  may  bring 
their  household  servants  with  them  for  a  reason- 
able time  and  take  them  away  again.  The  third 
provides  a  temporary  system  of  apprenticeship  and 
eventual  emancipation  for  children  born  of  slave- 
mothers  after  January  1,  1850.  The  fourth  pro- 
vides for  the  manumission  of  slaves  by  the 
Grovernment  on  application  of  the  owners,  the 
latter  to  receive  their  full  cash  value.  The  fifth 
provides  for  the  return  of  fugitive  slaves  from 
Washington  and  Georgetown.  The  sixth  submits 
this  bill  itself  to  a  popular  vote  in  the  District  as  a 
condition  of  its  promulgation  as  law. 

These  are  the  essential  points  of  the  measure  and 
the  success  of  Mr.  Lincoln  in  gaining  the  adhesion 
of  the  abolitionists  in  the  House  is  more  remark- 
able than  that  he  should  have  induced  the  Wash- 
ington Conservatives  to  approve  it.  But  the  usual 
result  followed  as  soon  as  it  was  formally  intro- 
duced to  the  notice  of  Congress.  It  was  met  by 
that  violent  and  excited  opposition  which  greeted 
any  measure,  however  intrinsically  moderate  and 
reasonable,  which  was  founded  on  the  assumption 
that  slavery  was  not  in  itself  a  good  and  desirable 
thing.    The  social  influences  of  Washington  were 


288  ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

Chap.  XVI.  brought  to  bear  against  a  proposition  which  the 
Southerners  contended  would  vulgarize  society, 
and  the  genial  and  liberal  mayor  was  forced  to 
withdraw  his  approval  as  gracefully  or  as  awk- 
wardly as  he  might.  The  prospects  of  the  bill 
were  seen  to  be  hopeless,  as  the  session  was  to  end 
on  the  4th  of  March,  and  no  further  effort  was 
made  to  carry  it  through.  Fifteen  years  after- 
wards, in  the  stress  and  tempest  of  a  terrible  war, 
it  was  Mr.  Lincoln's  strange  fortune  to  sign  a  bill 
•  sent  him  by  Congress  for  the  abolition  of  slavery 
in  Washington  ;  and  perhaps  the  most  remarkable 
thing  about  the  whole  transaction  was  that  while 
we  were  looking  politically  upon  a  new  heaven  and 
a  new  earth, —  for  the  vast  change  in  our  moral 
and  economic  condition  might  justify  so  audacious 
a  phrase, —  when  there  was  scarcely  a  man  on  the 
continent  who  had  not  greatly  shifted  his  point  of 
view  in  a  dozen  years,  there  was  so  little  change 
in  Mr.  Lincoln.  The  same  hatred  of  slavery,  the 
same  sympathy  with  the  slave,  the  same  considera- 
tion for  the  slaveholder  as  the  victim  of  a  system 
he  had  inherited,  the  same  sense  of  divided  respon- 
sibility between  the  South  and  the  North,  the  same 
desire  to  effect  great  reforms  with  as  little  in- 
dividual damage  and  injury,  as  little  disturbance 
of  social  conditions  as  possible,  were  equally 
evident  when  the  raw  pioneer  signed  the  protest 
with  Dan  Stone  at  Vandalia,  when  the  mature  man 
moved  the  resolution  of  1849  in  the  Capitol,  and 
when  the  President  gave  the  sanction  of  his  bold 
signature  to  the  act  which  swept  away  the  slave- 
shambles  from  the  city  of  Washington. 
His  term  in  Congress  ended  on  the  4th  of  March, 


JOSHUA    E.   GIDDINGS 


THE  imm 

OF  TtiE 


A    FORTUNATE    ESCAPE  289 

1849,  and  he  was  not  a  candidate  for  reelection.  A  chap.  xvi. 
year  before  he  had  contemplated  the  possibility  of 
entering  the  field  again.  He  then  wrote  to  his 
friend  and  partner  Herndon :  "  It  is  very  pleasant 
for  me  to  learn  from  you  that  there  are  some  who 
desire  that  I  should  be  reelected.  I  most  heartily 
thank  them  for  their  kind  partiality ;  and  I  can  say, 
as  Mr.  Clay  said  of  the  annexation  of  Texas,  that 
'personally  I  would  not  object'  to  a  reelection, 
although  I  thought  at  the  time  [of  his  nomina- 
tion], and  still  think,  it  would  be  quite  as  well  for 
me  to  return  to  the  law  at  the  end  of  a  single  term. 
I  made  the  declaration  that  I  would  not  be  a  can- 
didate again,  more  from  a  wish  to  deal  fairly  with 
others,  to  keep  peace  among  our  friends,  and  keep 
the  district  from  going  to  the  enemy,  than  for  any 
cause  personal  to  myself,  so  that,  if  it  should  so 
happen  that  nobody  else  wishes  to  be  elected,  I 
could  not  refuse  the  people  the  right  of  sending 
me  again.  But  to  enter  myself  as  a  competitor  of 
others,  or  to  authorize  any  one  so  to  enter  me,  is 
what  my  word  and  honor  forbid." 

But  before  his  first  session  ended  he  gave  up  all 
idea  of  going  back,  and  heartily  concurred  in  the 
nomination  of  Judge  Logan  to  succeed  him.  The 
Sangamon  district  was  the  one  which  the  Whigs  of 
Illinois  had  apparently  the  best  prospect  of  carry- 
ing, and  it  was  full  of  able  and  ambitious  men, 
who  were  nominated  successively  for  the  only 
place  which  gave  them  the  opportunity  of  play- 
ing a  part  in  the  national  theater  at  Washington. 
They  all  served  with  more  or  less  distinction,  but 
for  eight  years  no  one  was  ever  twice  a  candidate. 
A  sort  of  tradition  had  grown  up,  through  which 

Vol.  I.— 19 


290  ABEAHAM    LINCOLN 

Chap.  XVI.  a  perverted  notion  of  honor  and  propriety  held  it 
discreditable  in  a  member  to  ask  for  reelection. 
This  state  of  things  was  not  peculiar  to  that  dis- 
trict, and  it  survives  with  more  or  less  \dgor 
throughout  the  country  to  this  day,  to  the  serious 
detriment  of  Congi'ess.  This  consideration,  coupled 
with  what  is  called  the  claim  of  locality,  must  in 
time  still  further  deteriorate  the  representatives  of 
the  States  at  Washington.  To  ask  in  a  nominating 
convention  who  is  best  qualified  for  service  in 
Congress  is  always  regarded  as  an  impertinence; 
but  the  question  "what  county  in  the  district 
has  had  the  Congressman  oftenest  "  is  always  con- 
sidered in  order.  For  such  reasons  as  these  Mr. 
Lincoln  refused  to  allow  his  name  to  go  before  the 
voters  again,  and  the  next  year  he  again  refused, 
writing  an  emphatic  letter  for  publication,  in 
which  he  said  that  there  were  many  Whigs  who 
could  do  as  much  as  he  "to  bring  the  district  right 
side  up." 

Colonel  Baker  had  come  back  from  the  wars 
with  all  the  glitter  of  Cerro  Grordo  about  him,  but 
did  not  find  the  prospect  of  political  preferment 
flattering  in  Sangamon  County,  and  therefore,  with 
that  versatility  and  sagacity  which  was  more  than 
once  to  render  him  signal  service,  he  removed  to 
the  Galena  district,  in  the  extreme  north-western 
corner  of  the  State,  and  almost  immediately  on  his 
arrival  there  received  a  nomination  to  Congress. 
He  was  doubly  fortunate  in  this  move,  as  the 
nomination  he  was  unable  to  take  away  from 
Logan  proved  useless  to  the  latter,  who  was 
defeated  after  a  hot  contest.  Baker  therefore 
took  the  place  of  Lincoln  as  the  only  Whig  mem- 


A    FORTUNATE    ESCAPE  291 

ber  from  Illinois,  and  their  names  occur  frequently  chap.  xvi. 
together  in  the  arrangements  for  the  distribution 
of  "Federal  patronage"  at  the  close  of  the  Ad- 
ministration of  Polk  and  the  beginning  of  that 
of  Taylor. 

During  the  period  while  the  President-elect  was 
considering  the  appointment  of  his  Cabinet,  Lin- 
coln used  all  the  influence  he  could  bring  to  bear, 
which  was  probably  not  very  much,  in  favor  of 
Baker  for  a  place  in  the  Government.     The  Whig 
members  of  the  Legislatm*es  of  Illinois,  Iowa,  and    ^g  jg^^g^ 
Wisconsin    joined  in   this   effort,  which   came   to    '^"oTuto'^' 
nothing.     The   recommendations   to   office   which  Flt'X^im. 
Lincoln  made  after  the  inauguration   of  General 
Taylor  are  probably  unique  of  their  kind.     Here  is 
a  specimen  which  is  short  enough  to  give  entire. 
It  is  addressed  to  the  Secretary  of  the  Interior: 
"  I  recommend  that  William  Butler  be  appointed 
Pension  Agent  for  the  Illinois  agency  when  the 
place   shall  be   vacant.     Mr.   Hurst,   the   present 
incumbent,   I  believe  has  performed  the    duties 
very  well.    He  is  a  decided  partisan,  and  I  believe 
expects  to  be  removed.    Whether  he   shall  be,  I 
submit  to  the  Department.     This  office  is  not  con- 
fined to  my  district,   but   pertains   to   the   whole 
State ;  so  that  Colonel  Baker  has  an  equal  right 
with  myself  to  be  heard  concerning  it.     However, 
the  office  is  located  here  (at  Springfield) ;  and   I 
think  it  is  not  probable  any  one  would  desire  to 
remove  from  a  distance  to  take  it." 

We  have  examined  a  large  number  of  his  rec- 
ommendations—  for  with  a  complete  change  of 
administration  there  would  naturally  be  great 
activity  among  the  office-seekers  —  and  they  are  all 


292  ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

Chap.  XVI.  ID  precisely  the  same  vein.  He  nowhere  asks  for  the 
removal  of  an  incumbent ;  he  never  claims  a  place 
as  subject  to  his  disposition  ;  in  fact,  he  makes  no 
personal  claim  whatever ;  he  simply  advises  the 
Government,  in  case  a  vacancy  occurs,  who,  in  his 
opinion,  is  the  best  man  to  fill  it.  When  there  are 
two  applicants,  he  indicates  which  is  on  the  whole 
the  better  man,  and  sometimes  adds  that  the  weight 
of  recommendations  is  in  favor  of  the  other  !  In 
one  instance  he  sends  forward  the  recommendations 
of  the  man  whom  he  does  not  prefer,  with  an 
indorsement  emphasizing  the  importance  of  them, 
and  adding :  "  From  personal  knowledge  I  consider 
Mr.  Bond  every  way  worthy  of  the  office  and 
qualified  to  fill  it.  Holding  the  individual  opinion 
that  the  appointment  of  a  different  gentleman 
would  be  better,  I  ask  especial  attention  and  con- 
sideration for  his  claims,  and  for  the  opinions  ex- 
pressed in  his  favor  by  those  over  whom  I  can 
claim  no  superiority."  The  candor,  the  fairness 
and  moderation,  together  with  the  respect  for  the 
public  service  which  these  recommendations  dis- 
play, are  all  the  more  remarkable  when  we  reflect 
that  there  was  as  yet  no  sign  of  a  public  conscience 
upon  the  subject.  The  patronage  of  the  Govern- 
ment was  scrambled  for,  as  a  matter  of  course,  in 
the  mire  into  which  Jackson  had  flung  it. 

For  a  few  weeks  in  the  spring  of  1849  Mr.  Lin- 
coln appears  in  a  character  which  is  entirely  out  of 
keeping  with  all  his  former  and  subsequent  career. 
He  became,  for  the  first  and  only  time  in  his  life, 
an  applicant  for  an  appointment  at  the  hands  of 
the  President.  His  bearing  in  this  attitude  was 
marked  by  his  usual  individuality.    In  the  opinion 


A    FORTUNATE    ESCAPE  293 

of  many  Illinoisans  it  was  important  that  the  place  chap.  xvi. 
of  Commissioner  of  the  General  Land  Office  should 
be  given  to  a  citizen  of  their  State,  one  thoroughly 
acquainted  with  the  land  law  in  the  West  and  the 
special  needs  of  that  region.  A  letter  to  Lincoln 
was  drawn  up  and  signed  by  some  half-dozen  of 
the  leading  Whigs  of  the  State  asking  him  to  be- 
come an  applicant  for  that  position. 

He  promptly  answered,  saying  that  if  the  posi- 
tion could  be  secured  for  a  citizen  of  Illinois  only 
by  his  accepting  it,  he  would  consent ;  but  he  went 
on  to  say  that  he  had  promised  his  best  efforts 
to  Cyrus  Edwards  for  that  place,  and  had  after- 
wards stipulated  with  Colonel  Baker  that  if  J.  L. 
D.  Morrison,  another  Mexican  hero,  and  Edwards 
could  come  to  an  understanding  with  each  other  as 
to  which  should  withdraw,  he  would  join  in  recom- 
mending the  other;  that  he  could  not  take  the 
place,  therefore,  unless  it  became  clearly  impossi- 
ble for  either  of  the  others  to  get  it.  Some  weeks 
later,  the  impossibility  referred  to  having  become 
apparent,  Mr.  Lincoln  applied  for  the  place;  but 
a  suitor  for  office  so  laggard  and  so  scrupulous  as 
he,  stood  very  little  chance  of  success  in  contests 
like  those  which  periodically  raged  at  Washington 
during  the  first  weeks  of  every  new  administration. 
The  place  came,  indeed,  to  Illinois,  but  to  neither 
of  the  three  we  have  mentioned.  The  fortunate 
applicant  was  Justin  Butterfield,  of  Chicago,  a 
man  well  and  favorably  known  among  the  early 
members  of  the  Illinois  bar,^  who,  however,  devoted 

1  Butterfield  had  a  great  repu-  old  lawyers  in  Illinois,  and  show 

tation  for  ready  wit  and  was  sus-  at  least  a  well-marked  humorous 

pected  of  deep  learning.     Some  intention.      On  one  occasion  he 

of  his  jests  are  still  repeated  by  appeared  before  Judge  Pope  to 


294  ABKAHAM   LINCOLN 

Chap.  XVI.  less  assiduous  attention  to  the  law  than  to  the 
business  of  office-seeking,  which  he  practiced  with 
fair  success  all  his  days. 

It  was  in  this  way  that  Abraham  Lincoln  met 
and  escaped  one  of  the  greatest  dangers  of  his  life. 
In  after  days  he  recognized  the  error  he  had 
committed,  and  congratulated  himself  upon  the 
happy  deliverance  he  had  obtained  through  no 
merit  of  his  own.  The  loss  of  at  least  fom-  years 
of  the  active  pursuit  of  his  profession  would  have 
been  irreparable,  leaving  out  of  view  the  strong 
probability  that  the  singular  charm  of  Washington 
life  to  men  who  have  a  passion  for  politics  might 
have  kept  him  there  forever.  It  has  been  said  that 
a  residence  in  Washington  leaves  no  man  precisely 
as  it  found  him.  This  is  an  axiom  which  may  be 
applied  to  most  cities  in  a  certain  sense,  but  it 
is  true  in  a  peculiar  degree  of  our  capital. 

To  the  men  who  go  there  from  small  rural  com- 
munities in  the  South  and  the  West,  the  bustle 
and  stir,  the  intellectual  movement,  such  as  it  is, 
the   ordinary   subjects   of  conversation,   of    such 

ask  the  discharge  of  the  famous  that  he  had  lost  an  office  in  New 

Mormon    Prophet,    Joe     Smith,  York  by   opposing    the    war    of 

who  was  in  custody  surrounded  1812.      "Henceforth,"   he   said 

by  his  church  dignitaries.     Bow-  with  cynical  vehemence,  "  I  am 

ing  profoundly  to  the  court  and  for  war,  pestilence,  and  famine." 

the  ladies  who  thronged  the  hall.  He     was     once     defending    the 

he  said:    "I  appear  before  you  Shawneetown  Bank  and  advocat- 

under  solemu   and  peculiar  cir-  ing  the  extension  of  its  charter; 

cumstances.     I  am  to  address  the  an    opposing   lawyer   contended 

Pope,  surrounded  by   angels,  in  that  this  would  be  creating  a  new 

the  presence  of  the  holy  apostles,  bank.       Butterfield    brought     a 

in  behalf  of  the  Prophet  of  the  smile  from  the  court  and  a  laugh 

Lord."      We  once  heard  Lincoln  from  the  bar  by  asking  "whether 

say  of  Butterfield  that   he   was  when  the    Lord  lengthened   the 

one  of  the  few  Whigs  in  Illinois  life  of  Hezekiah  he  made  a  new 

who  approved  the  Mexican  war.  man,  or  whether  it  was  the  same 

His  reason,   frankly  given,  was  old  Hezekiah  ?  " 


A    FOKTUNATE    ESCAPE  295 

vastly  greater  importance  than  anything  they  have  chap.xvi. 
previously  known,  the  daily,  even  hourly  combats 
on  the  floor  of  both  houses,  the  intrigue  and 
the  struggle  of  office-hunting,  which  engage  vast 
numbers  besides  the  office-seekers,  the  superior 
piquancy  and  interest  of  the  scandal  which  is 
talked  at  a  Congressional  boarding-house  over 
that  which  seasons  the  dull  days  at  village-tav- 
erns— all  this  gives  a  savor  to  life  in  Washington 
the  memory  of  which  doubles  the  tedium  of  the 
sequestered  vale  to  which  the  beaten  legislator  re- 
tui^ns  when  his  brief  hour  of  glory  is  over.  It  is 
this  which  brings  to  the  State  Department,  after 
every  general  election,  that  crowd  of  specters, 
with  their  bales  of  recommendations  from  pitying 
colleagues  who  have  been  reelected,  whose  dimin- 
ishing prayers  run  down  the  whole  gamut  of  sup- 
plication from  St.  James  to  St.  Paul  of  Loando, 
and  of  whom  at  the  last  it  must  be  said,  as  Mr. 
Evarts  once  said  after  an  unusually  heavy  day, 
"  Many  called,  but  few  chosen."  Of  those  who  do 
not  achieve  the  ruinous  success  of  going  abroad  to 
consulates  that  will  not  pay  their  board,  or  mis- 
sions where  they  avoid  daily  shame  only  by  hid- 
ing their  penury  and  their  ignorance  away  from 
observation,  a  great  portion  yield  to  their  fate  and 
join  that  fleet  of  wrecks  which  floats  forever  on 
the  pavements  of  Washington. 

It  is  needless  to  say  that  Mr.  Lincoln  received 
no  damage  from  his  term  of  service  in  Washing- 
ton, but  we  know  of  nothing  which  shows  so 
strongly  the  perilous  fascination  of  the  place  as 
the  fact  that  a  man  of  his  extraordinary  moral  and 
mental  qualities  could  ever  have   thought  for  a 


296  ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

Chap.  XVI.  moment  of  accepting  a  position  so  insignificant 
and  incongruous  as  that  which  he  was  more  than 
willing  to  assume  when  he  left  Congress.  He 
would  have  filled  the  place  with  honor  and  credit — 
but  at  a  monstrous  expense.  We  do  not  so  much 
refer  to  his  exceptional  career  and  his  great  figure 
in  history;  these  momentous  contingencies  could 
not  have  suggested  themselves  to  him.  But  the 
place  he  was  reasonably  sure  of  filling  in  the 
battle  of  life  should  have  made  a  subordinate  office 
in  Washington  a  thing  out  of  the  question.  He 
was  already  a  lawyer  of  skill  and  reputation ;  an 
orator  upon  whom  his  party  relied  to  speak  for 
them  to  the  people.  An  innate  love  of  combat 
was  in  his  heart ;  he  loved  discussion  like  a  medi- 
eval schoolman.  The  air  was  already  tremulous 
with  faint  bugle-notes  that  heralded  a  conflict  of 
giants  on  a  field  of  moral  significance  to  which  he 
was  fully  alive  and  awake,  where  he  was  certain  to 
lead  at  least  his  hundreds  and  his  thousands.  Yet 
if  Justin  Butterfield  had  not  been  a  more  supple, 
more  adroit,  and  less  scrupulous  suitor  for  office 
than  himself,  Abraham  Lincoln  would  have  sat  for 
four  inestimable  years  at  a  bureau-desk  in  the 
Interior  Department,  and  when  the  hour  of  action 
sounded  in  Illinois,  who  would  have  filled  the  place 
which  he  took  as  if  he  had  been  born  for  it  ?  Who 
could  have  done  the  duty  which  he  bore  as  lightly 
as  if  he  had  been  fashioned  for  it  from  the  begin- 
ning of  time  ? 

His  temptation  did  not  end  even  with  Butter- 
field's  success.  The  Administration  of  General 
Taylor,  apparently  feeling  that  some  compensa- 
tion was  due  to  one  so  earnestly  recommended  by 


A    FORTUNATE    ESCAPE  297 

the  leading  Whigs  of  the  State,  offered  Mr.  Lincoln  chap.  xvi. 
the  governorship  of  O'regon.  This  was  a  place 
more  suited  to  him  than  the  other,  and  his  accept- 
ance of  it  was  urged  by  some  of  his  most  judicious 
friends^  on  the  ground  that  the  new  Territory 
would  soon  be  a  State,  and  that  he  could  come 
back  as  a  senator.  This  view  of  the  matter  com- 
mended itself  favorably  to  Lincoln  himself,  who, 
however,  gave  it  up  on  account  of  the  natural 
unwillingness  of  his  wife  to  remove  to  a  country 
so  wild  and  so  remote. 

This  was  all  as  it  should  be.  The  best  place  for 
him  was  Illinois,  and  he  went  about  his  work  there 
until  his  time  should  come. 

1  Among  others  John  T.  Stuart,  who  is  our  authority  for  this 

statement. 


CHAPTER    XVII 


THE    CIRCUIT    LAWYER 


ch.xvii.  "TN  that  briefest  of  all  autobiographies,  which 
-L  Mr.  Lincoln  wrote  for  Jesse  Fell  upon  three 
pages  of  note-paper,  he  sketched  in  these  words 
the  period  at  which  we  have  arrived :  "  From  1849 
to  1854,  both  inclusive,  I  practiced  law  more  assid- 
uously than  ever  before.  .  .  I  was  losing  interest 
in  politics,  when  the  repeal  of  the  Missouri  Com- 
promise aroused  me  again."  His  service  in  Con- 
gress had  made  him  more  generally  known  than 
formerly,  and  had  increased  his  practical  value  as 
a  member  of  any  law  firm.  He  was  offered  a 
partnership  on  favorable  terms  by  a  lawyer  in 
good  practice  in  Chicago ;  but  he  declined  it  on 
the  ground  that  his  health  would  not  endure  the 
close  confinement  necessary  in  a  city  office.  He 
went  back  to  Springfield,  and  resumed  at  once  his 
practice  there  and  in  the  Eighth  Judicial  Circuit, 
where  his  occupations  and  his  associates  were  the 
most  congenial  that  he  could  anywhere  find.  For 
five  years  he  devoted  himself  to  his  work  with 
more  energy  and  more  success  than  ever  before. 

It  was  at  this  time  that  he  gave  a  notable  proof 
of  his  unusual  powers  of  mental  discipline.  His 
wider  knowledge  of  men  and  things,  acquired  by 
contact  with  the  great  world,  had  shown  him  a  cer- 

298 


THE    CIRCUIT    LAWYER  299 

tain  lack  in  himself  of  the  power  of  close  and  ch.xvii. 
sustained  reasoning.  To  remedy  this  defect,  he 
applied  himself,  after  his  return  from  Congress, 
to  such  works  upon  logic  and  mathematics  as  he 
fancied  would  be  serviceable.  Devoting  himself 
with  dogged  energy  to  the  task  in  hand,  he  soon 
learned  by  heart  six  books  of  the  propositions  of 
Euclid,  and  he  retained  through  life  a  thorough 
knowledge  of  the  principles  they  contain. 

The  outward  form  and  fashion  of  every  institu- 
tion change  rapidly  in  growing  communities  like 
om-  Western  States,  and  the  practice  of  the  law 
had  already  assumed  a  very  different  degree  of 
dignity  and  formality  from  that  which  it  presented 
only  twenty  years  before.  The  lawyers  in  hunting- 
shirts  and  mocassins  had  long  since  passed  away ; 
so  had  the  judges  who  apologized  to  the  criminals 
that  they  sentenced,  and  charged  them  "  to  let 
their  friends  on  Bear  Creek  understand  it  was  the 
law  and  the  jury  who  were  responsible."  Even  the 
easy  familiarity  of  a  later  date  would  no  longer  be 
tolerated.  No  successor  of  Judge  Douglas  had 
been  known  to  follow  his  example  by  coming 
down  from  the  bench,  taking  a  seat  in  the  lap  of  a 
friend,  throwing  an  arm  around  his  neck,  and  in  i.N.Amoid 
that  intimate  attitude  discussing,  coram  publico,  "mstoTyot 
whatever  interested  him.  David  Davis  — after-  ^coi^^ty/f" 
wards  of  the  Supreme  Court  and  of  the  Senate  — 
was  for  many  years  the  presiding  judge  of  this 
circuit,  and  neither  under  him  nor  his  predecessor, 
S.  H.  Treat,  was  any  lapse  of  dignity  or  of  pro- 
priety possible.  Still  there  was  much  less  of  form 
and  ceremony  insisted  upon  than  is  considered 
proper  and  necessary  in  older  communities. 


300  ABKAHAM    LINCOLN 

ch.  XVII.  The  bar  in  great  measure  was  composed  of  the 
same  men  who  used  to  follow  the  circuit  on  horse- 
back, over  roads  impassable  to  wheels,  with  their 
scanty  wardrobes,  then-  law-books,  and  their  docu- 
ments crowding  each  other  in  their  saddle-bags. 
The  improvement  of  roads  which  made  carriages 
a  possibility  had  effected  a  great  change,  and  the 
coming  of  the  railway  had  completed  the  sudden 
development  of  the  manners  and  customs  of  the 
modernized  community.  But  they  could  not  all  at 
once  take  from  the  bar  of  the  Eighth  Circuit  its 
raciness  and  its  individuality.  The  men  who  had 
lived  in  log-cabins,  who  had  hunted  their  way 
through  untrodden  woods  and  prairies,  who  had 
thought  as  much  about  the  chances  of  swimming 
over  swollen  fords  as  of  their  cases,  who  had 
passed  their  nights  —  a  half-dozen  together  —  on 
the  floors  of  wayside  hostelries,  could  never  be 
precisely  the  same  sort  of  practitioners  as  the  smug 
barristers  of  a  more  conventional  age  and  place. 
But  they  were  not  deficient  in  ability,  in  learning, 
or  in  that  most  valuable  faculty  which  enables 
really  intelligent  men  to  get  their  bearings  and 
sustain  themselves  in  every  sphere  of  life  to  which 
they  may  be  called.  Some  of  these  very  colleagues 
of  Lincoln  at  the  Springfield  bar  have  sat  in 
Cabinets,  have  held  their  own  on  the  floor  of  the 
Senate,  have  led  armies  in  the  field,  have  governed 
States,  and  all  with  a  quiet  self-reliance  which  was 
as  far  as  possible  removed  from  either  undue 
arrogance  or  undue  modesty.-^ 

1  A  few  of  the    lawyers  who  Logan,  Stuart,  Baker,  Samuel  H. 

practiced  with  Lincoln,  and  have  Treat,  Bledsoe,  O.  H.  Browning, 

held  the  highest  official  positions,  Hardin,    Lyman   Trumbull,   and 

are  Douglas,  Shields,  Stephen  T.  McClernand. 


THE    CIRCUIT    LAWYER  301 

Among  these  able  and  energetic  men  Lincoln  as-  ch.  xvil 
sumed  and  held  the  first  rank.  This  is  a  statement 
which  ought  not  to  be  made  without  authority, 
and  rather  than  give  the  common  repute  of  the 
circuit,  we  prefer  to  cite  the  opinion  of  those 
lawyers  of  Illinois  who  are  entitled  to  speak  as  to 
this  matter,  both  by  the  weight  of  their  personal 
and  professional  character  and  by  their  eminent 
official  standing  among  the  jurists  of  our  time. 
We  shall  quote  rather  fully  from  addresses  delivered 
by  Justice  David  Davis,  of  the  Supreme  Court  of 
the  United  States,  and  by  Judge  Drummond,  the 
United  States  District  Judge  for  Illinois.  Judge 
Davis  says : 

I  enjoyed  for  over  twenty  years  the  personal  friendship 
of  Mr.  Lincoln.  We  were  admitted  to  the  bar  about  the 
same  time  and  traveled  for  many  years  what  is  known  in 
Illinois  as  the  Eighth  Judicial  Court.  In  1848,  when  I  first 
went  on  the  bench,  the  circuit  embraced  fourteen  counties, 
and  Mr.  Lincoln  went  with  the  Court  to  every  county. 
Railroads  were  not  then  in  use,  and  our  mode  of  travel 
was  either  on  horseback  or  in  buggies. 

This  simple  life  he  loved,  preferring  it  to  the  practice 
of  the  law  in  a  city,  where,  although  the  remuneration 
would  be  greater,  the  opportunity  would  be  less  for 
mixing  with  the  great  body  of  the  people,  who  loved 
him,  and  whom  he  loved.  Mr.  Lincoln  was  transferred 
from  the  bar  of  that  circuit  to  the  office  of  the  President 
of  the  United  States,  having  been  without  official  position 
since  he  left  Congress  in  1849.  In  all  the  elements  that 
constitute  the  great  lawyer  he  had  few  equals.  He  was 
great  both  at  nisi  prius  and  before  an  appellate  tribunal. 
He  seized  the  strong  points  of  a  cause,  and  presented 
them  with  clearness  and  great  compactness.  His  mind 
was  logical  and  direct,  and  he  did  not  indulge  in  extra- 
neous discussion.  Generalities  and  platitudes  had  no 
charms  for  him.  An  unfailing  vein  of  humor  never 
deserted  him ;    and  he  was  able  to  claim  the  attention  of 


302  ABRA.HAM    LINCOLN 

ch.xvii.  court  and  jury,  wlien  the  cause  was  the  most  uninterest- 
ing, by  the  appropriateness  of  his  anecdotes.^ 

His  power  of  comparison  was  large,  and  he  rarely 
failed  in  a  legal  discussion  to  use  that  mode  of  reasoning. 
The  framework  of  his  mental  and  moral  being  was 
honesty,  and  a  wrong  cause  was  poorly  defended  by  him. 
The  ability  which  some  eminent  lawyers  possess,  of 
explaining  away  the  bad  points  of  a  cause  by  ingenious 
sophistry,  was  denied  him.  In  order  to  bring  into  full 
activity  his  great  powers,  it  was  necessary  that  he  should 
be  convinced  of  the  right  and  justice  of  the  matter 
which  he  advocated.  When  so  convinced,  whether  the 
cause  was  great  or  small,  he  was  usually  successful.  He 
read  law-books  but  little,  except  when  the  cause  in  hand 
made  it  necessary;  yet  he  was  usually  self-reliant, 
depending  on  his  own  resources,  and  rarely  consulting 
his  brother  lawyers,  either  on  the  management  of  his 
case  or  on  the  legal  questions  involved. 

Mr.  Lincoln  was  the  fairest  and  most  accommodating  of 
practitioners,  granting  all  favors  which  were  consistent 
with  his  duty  to  his  client,  and  rarely  availing  himself  of 
an  unwary  oversight  of  his  adversary. 

He  hated  wrong  and  oppression  everywhere,  and  many 
a  man  whose  fraudulent  conduct  was  undergoing  review 
in  a  court  of  justice  has  writhed  under  his  terrific  indig- 
nation and  rebukes.  He  was  the  most  simple  and  un- 
ostentatious of  men  in  his  habits,  having  few  wants,  and 
those  easily  supplied.  To  his  honor  be  it  said  that  he 
never  took  from  a  chent,  even  when  his  cause  was 
gained,  more  than  he  thought  the  services  were  worth 
and  the  client  could  reasonably  afford  to  pay.  The  people 
where  he  practiced  law  were  not  rich,  and  his  charges 
were  always  small.  When  he  was  elected  President,  I 
question  whether  there  was  a  lawyer  in  the  circuit,  who 
had  been  at  the  bar  so  long  a  time,  whose  means  were  not 
larger.  It  did  not  seem  to  be  one  of  the  purposes  of  his 
life  to  accumulate  a  fortune.    In  fact,  outside  of  his  pro- 

1  U,  F,  Linder  once  said  to  an  that  flattering  unction  to  your 

Eastern    lawyer  who    expressed  soul,    Lincoln   is    like   Tansey's 

the    opinion    that    Lincoln    was  horse,  he  'breaks  to  win,'" — T, 

wasting     his     time     in     telling  W,  S.  Kidd,  in  the  Lincoln  Me- 

stories  to  the  jury,    "Don't  lay  morial  Album, 


THE    CIRCUIT    LAWYER  303 

f ession,  he  had  no  knowledge  of  the  way  to  make  money,    ch.  xvii. 
and  he  never  even  attempted  it, 

Mr.  Lincoln  was  loved  by  his  brethren  of  the  bar,  and 
no  body  of  men  will  grieve  more  at  his  death,  or  pay 
more  sincere  tributes  to  his  memory.  His  presence  on 
the  circuit  was  watched  for  with  interest  and  never  failed 
to  produce  joy  or  hilarity.  When  casually  absent,  the 
spirits  of  both  bar  and  people  were  depressed.  He  was 
not  fond  of  litigation,  aud  would  compromise  a  lawsuit 
whenever  practicable. 

No  clearer  or  more  authoritative  statement  of 
Lincoln's  rank  as  a  lav^^yer  can  ever  be  made  than 
is  found  in  these  brief  sentences,  in  which  the 
warmth  of  personal  affection  is  not  permitted  to 
disturb  the  measured  appreciation,  the  habitual 
reserve  of  the  eminent  jurist.  But,  as  it  may  be 
objected  that  the  friendship  which  united  Davis 
and  Lincoln  rendered  the  one  incapable  of  a  just 
judgment  upon  the  merits  of  the  other,  we  will 
also  give  an  extract  from  the  address  delivered  in 
Chicago  by  one  of  the  ablest  and  most  impartial 
lawyers  who  have  ever  honored  the  bar  and  the 
bench  in  the  West.     Judge  Drummond  says : 

With  a  probity  of  character  known  to  all,  with  an 
intuitive  insight  into  the  human  heart,  with  a  clearness 
of  statement  which  was  in  itseK  an  argument,  with  un- 
common power  and  felicity  of  illustration, —  often,  it  is 
true,  of  a  plain  and  homely  kind, —  and  with  that 
sincerity  and  earnestness  of  manner  which  carried  con- 
viction, he  was  perhaps  one  of  the  most  successful  jury 
lawyers  we  ever  had  in  the  State.  He  always  tried  a 
case  fairly  and  honestly.  He  never  intentionally  mis- 
represented the  evidence  of  a  witness  nor  the  argument 
of  an  opponent.  He  met  both  squarely,  and  if  he  could 
not  explain  the  one  or  answer  the  other,  substantially 
admitted  it.  He  never  misstated  the  law,  according  to 
his  own  intelligent  view  of  it.  Such  was  the  transparent 
candor  and  integrity  of  his  nature,  that  he  could  not  well 


304  ABKAHAM    LINCOLN 

ch.xvii.  or  strongly  argue  a  side  or  a  cause  that  he  thought 
wrong.  Of  course  he  felt  it  his  duty  to  say  what  could  be 
said,  and  to  leave  the  decision  to  others  ;  but  there  could 
be  seen  in  such  cases  the  inward  struggle  of  his  own 
mind.  In  trying  a  case  he  might  occasionally  dwell  too 
long  upon,  or  give  too  much  importance  to,  an  incon- 
siderable point ;  but  this  was  the  exception,  and  generally 
he  went  straight  to  the  citadel  of  the  cause  or  question, 
and  struck  home  there,  knowing  if  that  were  won  the 
outworks  would  necessarily  fall.  He  could  hardly  be 
called  very  learned  in  his  profession,  and  yet  he  rarely 
tried  a  cause  without  fully  understanding  the  law  appli- 
cable to  it;  and  I  have  no  hesitation  in  saying  he  was 
one  of  the  ablest  lawyers  I  have  ever  known.  If  he  was 
forcible  before  a  jury,  he  was  equally  so  with  the  Court. 
He  detected  with  unerring  sagacity  the  weak  points  of 
an  opponent's  argument,  and  pressed  his  own  views  with 
overwhelming  strength.  His  efforts  were  quite  unequal, 
and  it  might  happen  that  he  would  not,  on  some  occa- 
sions, strike  one  as  at  all  remarkable.  But  let  him  be 
thoroughly  roused,  let  him  feel  that  he  was  right,  and 
some  principle  was  involved  in  his  cause,  and  he  would 
come  out  with  an  earnestness  of  conviction,  a  power  of 
argument,  a  wealth  of  illustration,  that  I  have  never  seen 
surpassed. 

This  is  nothing  less  than  the  portrait  of  a  great 
lawyer,  drawn  by  competent  hands,  with  the  life- 
long habit  of  conscientious  accuracy.  If  we  chose 
to  continue  we  could  fill  this  volume  with  the 
tributes  of  his  professional  associates,  ranging  all 
the  way  from  the  commonplaces  of  condolence  to 
the  most  extravagant  eulogy.  But  enough  has 
been  quoted  to  justify  the  tradition  which  Lincoln 
left  behind  him  at  the  bar  of  Illinois.  His  weak  as 
well  as  his  strong  qualities  have  been  indicated. 
He  never  learned  the  technicalities,  what  some 
would  call  the  tricks,  of  the  profession.  The 
sleight  of  plea  and  demurrer,  the  legerdemain  by 


V 


^fe' 


DAVID    DAVIS- 


THE    CIRCUIT    LAWYER  305 

which  justice  is  balked  and  a  weak  case  is  made  to  ch.xvii. 
gain  an  unfair  advantage,  was  too  subtle  and  shifty 
for  his  strong  and  straightforward  intelhgence. 
He  met  these  manoeuvres  sufficiently  well,  when 
practiced  by  others,  but  he  never  could  get  in  the 
way  of  handling  them  for  himself.  On  the  wrong 
side  he  was  always  weak.  He  knew  this  himself, 
and  avoided  such  cases  when  he  could  consistently 
with  the  rules  of  his  profession.  He  would  often 
persuade  a  fair-minded  litigant  of  the  injustice  of 
his  case  and  induce  him  to  give  it  up.  His  partner, 
Mr.  Herndon,  relates  a  speech  in  point  which  Lin-  p!^i?.' 
coin  once  made  to  a  man  who  offered  him  an 
objectionable  case:  "Yes,  there  is  no  reasonable 
doubt  but  that  I  can  gain  your  case  for  you.  I  can 
set  a  whole  neighborhood  at  loggerheads ;  I  can  dis- 
tress a  widowed  mother  and  her  six  fatherless  chil- 
dren, and  thereby  get  for  you  six  hundred  dollars, 
which  rightfully  belongs,  it  appears  to  me,  as  much 
to  them  as  it  does  to  you.  I  shall  not  take  your 
case,  but  I  will  give  a  little  advice  for  nothing. 
You  seem  a  sprightly,  energetic  man.  I  would 
advise  you  to  try  your  hand  at  making  six  hun- 
dred dollars  in  some  other  way."  Sometimes,  after 
he  had  entered  upon  a  criminal  case,  the  conviction 
that  his  client  was  guilty  would  affect  him  with  a 
sort  of  panic.  On  one  occasion  he  turned  suddenly 
to  his  associate  and  said :  "  Swett,  the  man  is 
guilty ;  you  defend  him,  I  can't,"  and  so  gave  up 
his  share  of  a  large  fee.  The  same  thing  happened 
at  another  time  when  he  was  engaged  with  Judge 
S.  C.  Parks  in  defending  a  man  accused  of 
larceny.  He  said:  "If  you  can  say  anything  for 
the  man,  do  it,  I  can't ;  if  I  attempt  it,  the  jury  will 
Vol.  I.— 20 


306  ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

CH.XVII.  see  I  think  he  is  guilty,  and  convict  him."  Once 
he  was  prosecuting  a  civil  suit,  in  the  course  of 
which  evidence  was  introduced  showing  that  his 
client  was  attempting  a  fraud.  Lincoln  rose  and 
went  to  his  hotel  in  deep  disgust.  The  judge  sent 
for  him ;  he  refused  to  come.  "  Tell  the  judge,"  he 
said,  "  my  hands  are  dirty ;  I  came  over  to  wash 
them."  We  are  aware  that  these  stories  detract 
something  from  the  character  of  the  lawyer ;  but 
this  inflexible,  inconvenient,  and  fastidious  moral- 
ity was  to  be  of  vast  service  afterwards  to  his 
country  and  the  world. 

The  Nemesis  which  waits  upon  men  of  extraor- 
dinary wit  or  humor  has  not  neglected  Mr.  Lin- 
coln, and  the  young  lawyers  of  Illinois,  who  never 
knew  him,  have  an  endless  store  of  jokes  and 
pleasantries  in  his  name ;  some  of  them  as  old  as 
Howleglass  or  Rabelais.^  But  the  fact  is  that  with 
all  his  stories  and  jests,  his  frank  companionable 
humor,  his  gift  of  easy  accessibility  and  welcome, 
he  was,  even  while  he  traveled  the  Eighth  Circuit, 
a  man  of  grave  and  serious  temper  and  of  an 
unusual  innate  dignity  and  reserve.  He  had  few 
or  no  special  intimates,  and  there  was  a  hue  beyond 
which  no  one  ever  thought  of  passing.  Besides, 
he  was  too  strong  a  man  in  the  court-room  to  be 
regarded  with  anything  but  respect  in  a  community 

lAs  a  specimen  of  these  sto-  "Gone  to  h ,"  was  the  gloomy 

ries  we  give  the  following,  well  response.      "Well,  don't  give  it 

vouched  for,  as  apocrypha  gen-  up,"    Lincoln     rejoined     cheer- 

erally  are  :  Lincoln  met  one  day  fully ;    "  you  can    try    it    again 

on  the  court-house  steps  a  young  there  " —  a  quip  which  has  been 

lawyer  who  had  lost  a  ease  —  his  attributed  to  many  wits  in  many 

only  one  —  and  looked  very  dis-  ages,   and  will    doubtless  make 

consolate.      "  What  has  become  the  reputation  of  jesters  yet  to 

of  youj  case  ? "  Lincoln  asked,  be. 


THE    CIRCUIT    LAWYER  307 

in  which  legal  ability  was  the  only  especial  mark    ch,  xvii. 
of  distinction. 

Few  of  his  forensic  speeches  have  been  preserved, 
but  his  contemporaries  all  agree  as  to  their  singular 
ability  and  power.  He  seemed  absolutely  at  home 
in  a  court-room ;  his  great  stature  did  not  encum- 
ber him  there ;  it  seemed  like  a  natural  symbol  of 
superiority.  His  bearing  and  gesticulation  had 
no  awkwardness  about  them ;  they  were  simply 
striking  and  original.  He  assumed  at  the  start 
a  frank  and  friendly  relation  with  the  jury  which 
was  extremely  effective.  He  usually  began,  as  the 
phrase  ran,  by  "  giving  away  his  case  " ;  by  allow- 
ing to  the  opposite  side  every  possible  advantage 
that  they  could  honestly  and  justly  claim.  Then 
he  would  present  his  own  side  of  the  case,  with  a 
clearness,  a  candor,  an  adroitness  of  statement 
which  at  once  flattered  and  convinced  the  jury, 
and  made  even  the  bystanders  his  partisans. 
Sometimes  he  disturbed  the  court  with  laughter  by 
his  humorous  or  apt  illustrations ;  sometimes  he 
excited  the  audience  by  that  florid  and  exuberant 
rhetoric  which  he  knew  well  enough  how  and  when 
to  indulge  in ;  but  his  more  usual  and  more  success- 
ful manner  was  to  rely  upon  a  clear,  strong,  lucid 
statement,  keeping  details  in  proper  subordination 
and  bringing  forward,  in  a  way  which  fastened  the 
attention  of  court  and  jury  alike,  the  essential 
point  on  which  he  claimed  a  decision.  "  Indeed," 
says  one  of  his  colleagues,  "his  statement  often 
rendered  argument  unnecessary,  and  often  the 
court  would  stop  him  and  say,  '  If  that  is  the  case,  ^'Yife^of ' 
we  will  hear  the  other  side.' "  p?32.' 

Whatever  doubts  might  be  entertained  as  to 


308 


ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 


Ch.  XVII. 


I.N. 

Arnold, 
Speech 
before  the 
State  Bar 
Associa- 
tion, 
Jan.  7,  1881. 


whether  he  was  the  ablest  lawyer  on  the  circuit, 
there  was  never  any  dissent  from  the  opinion  that 
he  was  the  one  most  cordially  and  universally 
liked.  If  he  did  not  himself  enjoy  his  full  share 
of  the  happiness  of  life,  he  certainly  diffused  more 
of  it  among  his  fellows  than  is  in  the  power  of 
most  men.  His  arrival  was  a  little  festival  in  the 
county-seats  where  his  pursuits  led  him  to  pass 
so  much  of  his  time.  Several  eye-witnesses  have 
described  these  scenes  in  terms  which  would  seem 
exaggerated  if  they  were  not  so  fully  confirmed. 
The  bench  and  bar  would  gather  at  the  tavern 
where  he  was  expected,  to  give  him  a  cordial  wel- 
come ;  says  one  writer,  "  He  brought  light  with 
him."  This  is  not  hard  to  understand.  Whatever 
his  cares,  he  never  inflicted  them  upon  others.  He 
talked  singularly  well,  but  never  about  himself. 
He  was  full  of  wit  which  never  wounded,  of  humor 
which  mellowed  the  harshness  of  that  new  and 
raw  life  of  the  prairies.  He  never  asked  for  help, 
but  was  always  ready  to  give  it.  He  received 
everybody's  confidence,  and  rarely  gave  his  own 
in  return.  He  took  no  mean  advantages  in  court 
or  in  conversation,  and,  satisfied  with  the  respect 
and  kindliness  which  he  everywhere  met,  he 
sought  no  quarrels  and  seldom  had  to  decline 
them.  He  did  not  accumulate  wealth;  as  Judge 
Davis  said,  "  He  seemed  never  to  care  for  it."  He 
had  a  good  income  from  his  profession,  though 
the  fees  he  received  would  bring  a  smile  to  the 
well-paid  lips  of  the  great  attorneys  of  to-day. 
The  largest  fee  he  ever  got  was  one  of  five  thou- 
sand dollars  from  the  Illinois  Central  Railway,  and 
he  had  to  bring  suit  to  compel  them  to  pay  it.    He 


THE    CmCUIT    LAWYER  309 

spent  what  he  received  in  the    education  of  his    ch.  xvii. 
children,  in  the  care  of  his  family,  and  in  a  plain       j  jf 
and  generous  way  of  living.  One  who  often  visited     t^ech 
him  writes,  referring  to  "  the  old-fashioned  hospi-    sta'te'^Bar 
tality  of  Springfield,"  "Among  others  I  recall  with       tiou, 
a  sad  pleasure,  the  dinners  and  evening   parties 
given  by  Mrs.  Lincoln.    In  her  modest  and  sim- 
ple home,  where  everything  was   so   orderly  and 
refined,  there  was  always  on  the  part  of  both  host 
and  hostess  a  cordial  and  hearty  Western  welcome 
which  put  every  guest  perfectly  at  ease.     Their 
table  was  famed  for  the  excellence  of  many  rare 
Kentucky  dishes,  and  for  the  venison,  wild  tur- 
keys, and  other  game,  then  so  abundant.    Yet  it 
was  her  genial  manner  and  ever-kind  welcome, 
and  Mr.   Lincoln's  wit  and  humor,  anecdote  and 
unrivaled  conversation,  which  formed  the  chief 
attraction." 

Here  we  leave  him  for  a  while,  in  this  peaceful 
and  laborious  period  of  his  life ;  engaged  in  useful 
and  congenial  toil;  surrounded  by  the  love  and 
respect  of  the  entire  community;  in  the  fullness  of 
his  years  and  strength  ;  the  struggles  of  his  youth, 
which  were  so  easy  to  his  active  brain  and  his 
mighty  muscles,  all  behind  him,  and  the  titanic 
labors  of  his  manhood  yet  to  come.  We  shall 
now  try  to  sketch  the  beginnings  of  that  tremen- 
dous controversy  which  he  was  in  a  few  years  to 
take  up,  to  guide  and  direct  to  its  wonderful  and 
tragical  close. 


CHAPTER    XVIII 


THE    BALANCE    OF    POWER 


ch.  XVIII.  ^^TE  shall  see  in  the  course  of  the  present  work 
T  T  how  the  life  of  Abraham  Lincoln  divides 
itself  into  three  principal  periods,  with  correspond- 
ing stages  of  intellectual  development:  the  first, 
of  about  forty  years,  ending  with  his  term  in 
Congress;  the  second,  of  about  ten  years,  con- 
cluding with  his  final  campaign  of  political  speech- 
making  in  New  York  and  in  New  England,  shortly 
before  the  Presidential  nominations  of  1860;  and 
the  last,  of  about  five  years,  terminating  at  his 
death.  We  have  thus  far  traced  his  career  through 
the  first  period  of  forty  years.  In  the  several 
stages  of  frontier  experience  through  which  he  had 
passed,  and  which  in  the  main  but  repeated  the 
trials  and  vicissitudes  of  thousands  of  other  boys 
and  youths  in  the  West,  only  so  much  individuality 
had  been  developed  in  him  as  brought  him  into  the 
leading  class  of  his  contemporaries.  He  had  risen 
from  laborer  to  student,  from  clerk  to  lawyer,  from 
politician  to  legislator.  That  he  had  lifted  himself 
by  healthy  ambition  and  unaided  industry  out  of 
the  station  of  a  farm-hand,  whose  routine  life 
begins  and  ends  in  a  backwoods  log-cabin,  to  that 
representative  character  and  authority  which  seated 

310 


THE    BALANCE    OF    POWER  311 

him  in  the  national  Capitol  to  aid  in  framing  laws  ch.  xviii. 
for  his  country,  was  already  an  achievement  that 
may  well  be  held  to  crown  honorably  a  career  of 
forty  years. 

Such  achievement  and  such  distinction,  how- 
ever, were  not  so  uncommon  as  to  appear  phe- 
nomenal. Hundreds  of  other  boys  born  in  log-cabins 
had  won  similar  elevation  in  the  manly,  practical 
school  of  Western  public  life.  Even  in  ordinary 
times  there  still  remained  within  the  reach  of 
average  intellects  several  higher  grades  of  public 
service.  It  is  quite  probable  that  the  talents  of 
Lincoln  would  have  made  him  Governor  of  Illinois 
or  given  him  a  place  in  the  United  States  Senate. 
But  the  story  of  his  life  would  not  have  com- 
manded, as  it  now  does,  the  unflagging  attention 
of  the  world,  had  there  not  fallen  upon  his  gen- 
eration the  unusual  conditions  and  opportunities 
brought  about  by  a  series  of  remarkable  convulsions 
in  national  politics.  If  we  would  correctly  under- 
stand how  Lincoln  became,  first  a  conspicuous 
actor,  and  then  a  chosen  leader,  in  a  great  strife  of 
national  parties  for  supremacy  and  power,  we  must 
briefly  study  the  origin  and  development  of  the 
great  slavery  controversy  in  American  legislation 
which  found  its  highest  activity  and  decisive  cul- 
mination in  the  single  decade  from  1850  to  1860. 
But  we  should  greatly  err  if  we  attributed  the  new 
events  in  Lincoln's  career  to  the  caprice  of  fortune. 
The  conditions  and  opportunities  of  which  we 
speak  were  broadly  national,  and  open  to  all  with- 
out restriction  of  rank  or  locality.  Many  of  his 
contemporaries  had  seemingly  overshadowing 
advantages,  by  prominence  and  training,  to  seize 


312  ABKAHAM    LINCOLN 

ch.  XVIII.  and  appropriate  them  to  their  own  advancement. 
It  is  precisely  this  careful  study  of  the  times  which 
shows  us  by  what  inevitable  process  of  selection 
honors  and  labors  of  which  he  did  not  dream  fell 
upon  him  ;  how,  indeed,  it  was  not  the  individual 
who  gained  the  prize,  but  the  paramount  duty 
which  claimed  the  man. 

It  is  now  universally  understood,  if  not  con- 
ceded, that  the  Rebellion  of  1861  was  begun  for  the 
sole  purpose  of  defending  and  preserving  to  the 
seceding  States  the  institution  of  African  slavery 
and  making  them  the  nucleus  of  a  great  slave  em- 
pire, which  in  their  ambitious  dreams  they  hoped 
would  include  Mexico,  Central  America,  and  the 
West  India  Islands,  and  perhaps  even  the  tropical 
States  of  South  America.  Both  a  real  and  a  pre- 
tended fear  that  slavery  was  in  danger  lay  at  the 
bottom  of  this  design.  The  real  fear  arose  from 
the  palpable  fact,  impossible  to  conceal,  that  the 
slave  system  was  a  reactionary  obstacle  in  the 
pathway  of  modern  civilization,  and  its  political, 
material,  philosophical,  and  religious  development. 
The  pretended  danger  was  the  permanent  loss  of 
political  power  by  the  slave  States  of  the  Union,  as 
shown  in  the  election  of  Lincoln  to  the  presidency, 
which  they  averred  would  necessarily  throw  all  the 
forces  of  the  national  life  against  the  "peculiar 
institution,"  and  crush  it  under  forms  of  law.  It 
was  by  magnifying  this  danger  from  remote  into 
immediate  consequence  that  they  excited  the 
population  of  the  cotton  States  to  resistance  and 
rebellion.  Seizing  this  opportunity,  it  was  their 
present  purpose  to  establish  a  slave  Confederacy, 
consisting  of  the  cotton    States,  which  should  in 


THE    BALANCE    OF    POWER  313 

due  time  draw  to  itself,  by  an  irresistible  gravi-  ch.  xviii. 
tation  of  sympathy  and  interest,  first,  the  border 
slave  States,  and,  in  the  further  progress  of  events, 
the  tropical  countries  towards  the  equator. 

The  popular  agitation,  or  war  of  words  between 
the  North  and  the  South  on  the  subject  of  slavery, 
which  led  to  the  armed  insurrection  was  three- 
fold :  First,  the  economic  efforts  to  prevent  the  de- 
struction of  the  monetary  value  of  four  millions  of 
human  beings  held  in  bondage,  who  were  bought 
and  sold  as  chattels,  and  whose  aggregate  valuation, 
under  circumstances  existing  at  the  outbreak  of  the 
civil  war,  was  variously  computed  at  $400,000,000 
to  $1,600,000,000;^  second,  a  moral  debate  as  to  the 
abstract  righteousness  or  iniquity  of  the  system; 
and,  third,  a  political  struggle  for  the  balance  of 
power  in  government  and  public  policy,  by  which 
the  security  and  perpetuity  of  the  institution  might 
be  guaranteed. 

This  sectional  controversy  over  the  institution  of 
slavery  in  its  threefold  aspect  had  begun  with  the 
very  birth  of  the  nation,  had  continued  with  its 
growth,  and  become  intensified  with  its  strength. 
The  year  before  the  Mayflower  brought  the  Pilgrims 
to  Plymouth  Rock,  a  Dutch  ship  landed  a  cargo 
of  African  slaves  at  Jamestown,  in  Virginia.  Dur- 
ing the  long  colonial  period  the  English  Government 
fostered  and  forced  the  importation  of  slaves  to 
America  equally  with  English  goods.  In  the  orig- 
inal draft  of  the    Declaration    of   Independence, 

1  The  Convention  of  Missis-  the  rate  of  a  thousand  dollars  for 
sippi,  which  passed  the  secession  each  slave,  an  average  absurdly 
ordinance,  in  its  Declaration  of  excessive,  and  showing  their  ex- 
Causes  placed  the  total  value  of  aggerated  estimate  of  the  mone- 
their  property  in  slaves  at  "four  tary  value  of  the  institution  of 
billions  of  money."    This  was  at  slavery.  , 


314  ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 

ch.  xviii.  Thomas  Jefferson  invoked  the  reprobation  of  man- 
kind upon  the  British  King  for  his  share  in  this 
inhuman  traffic.  On  reflection,  however,  this  was 
discovered  to  be  but  another  case  of  Satan  rebuking 
sin.  The  blood  money  which  reddened  the  hands 
of  English  royalty  stained  equally  those  of  many 
an  American  rebel.  The  public  opinion  of  the 
colonies  was  already  too  much  debauched  to  sit  in 
unanimous  moral  judgment  on  this  crime  against 
humanity.  The  objections  of  South  Carolina  and 
Georgia  sufficed  to  cause  the  erasure  and  suppres- 
sion of  the  obnoxious  paragraph.  Nor  were  the 
Northern  States  guiltless :  Newport  was  yet  a  great 
slave-mart,  and  the  commerce  of  New  England 
drew  more  advantage  from  the  traffic  than  did  the 
agriculture  of  the  South. 
J„c.^Hurd,  All  the  elements  of  the  later  controversy  already 
and^S-  existed.  Slave  codes  and  fugitive-slave  laws,  abo- 
pp^.''22»^3ii.'  lition  societies  and  emancipation  bills,  are  older 
than  our  Constitution ;  and  negro  troops  fought  in 
the  Revolutionary  war  for  American  independence. 
Liberal  men  could  be  found  in  South  Carolina  who 
hated  slavery,  and  narrow  men  in  Massachusetts 
who  defended  it.  But  these  individual  instances 
of  prejudice  or  liberality  were  submerged  and  lost 
in  the  current  of  popular  opinion  springing  from 
prevailing  interests  in  the  respective  localities, 
and  institutions  molded  principles,  until  in  turn 
principles  should  become  strong  enough  to  re- 
form institutions.  In  short,  slavery  was  one  of 
the  many  "relics  of  barbarism" — like  the  divine 
right  of  kings,  religious  persecution,  torture  of 
the  accused,  imprisonment  and  enslavement  for 
debt,  witch-burning,  and  kindred  "  institutions  " — 


THE    BALANCE    OF    POWEE  315 

which  were  transmitted  to  that  generation  from  ch.  xviii. 
former  ages  as  so  many  burdens  of  humanity,  for 
help  in  the  removal  of  which  the  new  nation  was 
in  the  providence  of  God  perhaps  called  into 
existence.  The  whole  matter  in  its  broader 
aspects  is  part  of  that  persistent  struggle  of  the 
centuries  between  despotism  and  individual  free- 
dom; between  arbitrary  wrong,  consecrated  by 
tradition  and  law,  and  the  unfolding  recognition 
of  private  rights ;  between  the  thraldom  of  public 
opinion  and  liberty  of  conscience;  between  the 
greed  of  gain  and  the  Golden  Rule  of  Christ. 
Whoever,  therefore,  chooses  to  trace  the  remote 
origin  of  the  American  Rebellion  will  find  the  germ 
of  the  Union  armies  of  1861-5  in  the  cabin  of  the 
Mayflower^  and  the  inception  of  the  Secession  forces 
between  the  decks  of  that  Dutch  slaver  which 
planted  the  fruits  of  her  avarice  and  piracy  in  the 
James  River  colonies  in  1619. 

So  elaborate  and  searching  a  study,  however,  is 
not  necessary  to  the  purposes  of  this  work.  A  very 
brief  mention  of  the  principal  landmarks  of  the 
long  contest  will  serve  to  show  the  historical  rela- 
tion, and  explain  the  phraseology,  of  its  final  issues. 

The  first  of  these  great  landmarks  was  the  Ordi- 
nance of  1787.  All  the  States  tolerated  slavery  and 
permitted  the  slave-trade  during  the  Revolution. 
But  in  most  of  them  the  morality  of  the  system 
was  strongly  drawn  in  question,  especially  by  the 
abolition  societies,  which  embraced  many  of  the 
most  prominent  patriots.  A  public  opinion,  not 
indeed  unanimous,  but  largely  in  the  majority, 
demanded  that  the  "  necessary  evil "  should  cease. 
When  the  Continental  Congress  came  to  the  practi- 


316  ABKAHAM    LINCOLN 

ch.  XVIII.  cal  work  of  providing  a  government  for  the  "  West- 
ern lands,"  which  the  financial  pressure  and  the 
absolute  need  of  union  compelled  New  York  and 
Virginia  to  cede  to  the  general  Government, 
Thomas  Jefferson  proposed^  among  other  features 
in  his  plan  and  draft  of  1784,  to  add  a  clause  pro- 
hibiting slavery  in  all  the  North-west  territory  after 
the  year  1800.  A  North  Carolina  member  moved 
to  strike  out  this  clause.  The  form  of  the  question 
put  by  the  chairman  was,  "  Shall  the  clause  stand  ? " 
Sixteen  members  voted  aye  and  seven  members 
voted  no;  but  under  the  clumsy  legislative  ma- 
chinery of  the  Confederation  these  seven  noes  car- 
ried the  question,  since  a  majority  of  States  had 
failed  to  vote  in  the  affirmative. 

Three  years  later,  July  13,  1787,  this  first  ordi- 
nance was  repealed  by  a  second,  establishing  our 
more  modern  form  of  territorial  government.  It 
is  justly  famed  for  many  of  its  provisions ;  but  its 
chief  value  is  conceded  to  have  been  its  sixth 
article,  ordaining  the  immediate  and  perpetual 
prohibition  of  slavery.  Upon  this  all  the  States 
present  in  Congress  —  three  Northern  and  five 
Southern  —  voted  in  the  affirmative;  five  States 
were  absent,  four  Northern  and  one  Southern. 
This  piece  of  legislation  is  remarkable  in  that  it 
was  an  entirely  new  bill,  substituted  for  a  former 
and  altogether  different  scheme  containing  no 
prohibition  whatever,  and  that  it  was  passed 
through  all  the  forms  and  stages  of  enactment 
in  the  short  space  of  four  days.  History  sheds 
little  light  on  the  official  transaction,  but  con- 
temporary evidence  points  to  the  influence  of  a 
powerful  lobby. 


THE    BALANCE    OF    POWER  317 

Several  plausible  reasons  are  assigned  why  the  ch.  xviii. 
three  slave  States  of  Maryland,  Virginia,  and 
North  Carolina  voted  for  this  prohibition.  First, 
the  West  was  competing  with  the  Territory  of 
Maine  for  settlers ;  second,  the  whole  scheme  was 
in  the  interest  of  the  "Ohio  Company,"  a  newly 
formed  Massachusetts  emigrant  aid  society  which 
immediately  made  a  large  purchase  of  lands;  third, 
the  unsettled  regions  south  of  the  Ohio  River  had 
not  yet  been  ceded  to  the  general  Grovernment, 
and  were  therefore  open  to  slavery  from  the  con- 
tiguous Southern  States ;  fourth,  little  was  known 
of  the  extent  or  character  of  the  great  West ;  and, 
therefore,  fifth,  the  Ohio  River  was  doubtless 
thought  to  be  a  fair  and  equitable  dividing  line. 
The  ordinance  itself  provided  for  the  formation 
of  not  less  than  three  nor  more  than  five  States, 
and  under  its  shielding  provisions  Ohio,  Indiana, 
Illinois,  Michigan,  and  Wisconsin  were  added  to 
the  Union  with  free  constitutions. 

It  does  not  appear  that  sectional  motives  oper- 
ated for  or  against  the  foregoing  enactment ;  they 
were  probably  held  in  abeyance  by  other  consid- 
erations. But  it  must  not  be  inferred  therefrom 
that  the  slavery  question  was  absent  or  dormant 
in  the  country.  There  was  already  a  North  and 
a  South.  At  that  very  time  the  constitutional 
convention  was  in  session  in  Philadelphia.  George 
Washington  and  his  fellow-delegates  were  grap- 
pling with  the  novel  problems  of  government 
which  the  happy  issue  of  the  Revolution  and 
the  lamentable  failure  of  the  Confederation  forced 
upon  the  country.  One  of  these  problems  was  the 
presence  of  over  half  a  milUon  of  slaves,  nearly  all 


318 


ABEAHAM    LINCOLN 


"  ElUot's 

Debates," 

Vol.  v.,  p. 

305. 


Ibid.,  p.  392. 


ch. XVIII.  in  five  Southern  States.  Should  they  be  taxed? 
Should  they  be  represented?  Should  the  power  to 
regulate  commerce  be  allowed  to  control  or  termi- 
nate their  importation  ?  Vital  questions  these, 
which  went  not  merely  to  the  incidents  but 
the  fundamental  powers  of  government.  The 
slavery  question  seemed  for  months  an  element 
of  irreconcilable  discord  in  the  convention.  The 
slave-trade  not  only,  but  the  domestic  institution 
itself,  was  characterized  in  language  which  South- 
ern politicians  of  later  times  would  have  denounced 
as  "fanatical"  and  "incendiary."  Piuckney  wished 
the  slaves  to  be  represented  equally  with  the 
whites,  since  they  were  the  Southern  peasantry. 
Gouverneur  Morris  declared  that  as  they  were 
only  property  they  ought  not  to  be  represented 
at  all.  Both  the  present  and  the  future  balance 
of  power  in  national  legislation,  as  resulting  from 
slaves  already  in,  and  hereafter  to  be  imported 
into,  old  and  new  States,  were  debated  under  vari- 
ous possibilities  and  probabilities. 

Out  of  these  divergent  views  grew  the  compro- 
mises of  the  Constitution.  1.  The  slaves  were  to 
be  included  in  the  enumeration  for  representation, 
five  blacks  to  be  counted  as  three  whites.  2.  Con- 
gress should  have  the  right  to  prohibit  the  slave- 
trade,  but  not  till  the  lapse  of  twenty  years. 
3.  Fugitive  slaves  should  be  delivered  to  their 
owners.  Each  State,  large  or  small,  was  allowed 
two  senators;  and  the  apportionment  of  repre- 
sentatives gave  to  the  North  thirty-five  members 
and  fourteen  senators,  to  the  South  thirty  mem- 
bers and  twelve  senators.  But  since  the  North 
was  not  yet  free  from  slavery,  but  only  in  process 


THE    BALANCE    OF    POWER  319 

of  becoming  so,  and  as  Virginia  was  the  leading  ch.  xviil 
State  of  the   Union,  the  real  balance  of  power 
remained  in  the  hands  of  the  South. 

The  newly  formed  Constitution  went  into  suc- 
cessful operation.  Under  legal  provisions  already 
made  and  the  strong  current  of  abolition  senti- 
ment then  existing,  all  the  Eastern  and  Middle 
States  down  to  Delaware  became  free.  This  gain, 
however,  was  perhaps  more  than  numerically 
counterbalanced  by  the  active  importation  of  cap- 
tured Africans,  especially  into  South  Carolina  and 
Georgia,  up  to  the  time  the  traffic  ceased  by  law 
in  1808.  Jefferson  had  meanwhile  purchased  of 
France  the  immense  country  west  of  the  Missis- 
sippi known  as  the  Louisiana  Territory.  The  free 
navigation  of  that  great  river  was  assured,  and  the 
importance  of  the  West  immeasurably  increased. 
The  old  French  colonies  at  New  Orleans  and  Kas- 
kaskia  were  already  strong  outposts  of  civilization 
and  the  nuclei  of  spreading  settlements.  Attracted 
by  the  superior  fertility  of  the  soil,  by  the  limitless 
opportunities  for  speculation,  by  the  enticing  spirit 
of  adventure,  and  pushed  by  the  restless  energy 
inherent  in  the  Anglo-Saxon  character,  the  older 
States  now  began  to  pour  a  rising  stream  of  emi- 
gration into  the  West  and  the  South-west. 

In  this  race  the  free  States,  by  reason  of  their 
greater  population,  wealth,  and  commercial  enter- 
prise, would  have  outstripped  the  South  but  for 
the  introduction  of  a  new  and  powerful  influence 
which  operated  exclusively  in  favor  of  the  latter. 
This  was  the  discovery  of  the  peculiar  adaptation 
of  the  soil  and  climate  of  portions  of  the  Southern 
States,  combined  with  cheap  slave-labor,  to  the 


320 


ABEAHAM    LINCOLN 


ch.  xviir. 


cultivation  of  cotton.  Half  a  century  of  experiment 
and  invention  in  England  had  brought  about  the 
concurrent  improvement  of  machinery  for  spinning 
and  weaving,  and  of  the  high-pressure  engine  to 
furnish  motive  power.  The  Revolutionary  war  was 
scarcely  ended  when  there  came  from  the  mother- 
country  a  demand  for  the  raw  fiber,  which 
promised  to  be  almost  without  limit.  A  few  trials 
sufficed  to  show  Southern  planters  that  with  their 
soil  and  their  slaves  they  could  supply  this  de- 
mand with  a  quality  of  cotton  which  would  defy 
competition,  and  at  a  profit  to  themselves  far  ex- 
ceeding that  of  any  other  product  of  agi^iculture. 
But  an  insurmountable  obstacle  yet  seemed  to  in- 
terpose itself  between  them  and  their  golden  har- 
vest. The  tedious  work  of  cleaning  the  fiber  from 
the  seed  apparently  made  impossible  its  cheap 
preparation  for  export  in  large  quantities.  A 
negro  woman  working  the  whole  day  could  clean 
only  a  single  pound. 

It  so  happened  that  at  this  juncture,  November, 
1792,  an  ingenious  Yankee  student  from  Massa- 
chusetts was  boarding  in  the  house  of  friends  in 
Savannah,  Greorgia,  occupying  his  leisure  in  read- 
ing law.  A  party  of  Georgia  gentlemen  from  the 
interior,  making  a  visit  to  this  family,  fell  into 
conversation  on  the  prospects  and  difficulties  of 
cotton-culture  and  the  imperative  need  of  a  rapidly 
working  cleaning-machine.  Their  hostess,  an  intel- 
ligent and  quick-witted  woman,  at  once  suggested 
an  expedient.  "  Grentlemen,"  said  Mrs.  Greene, 
"  apply  to  my  young  friend,  Mr.  Eli  Whitney ;  he 
can  make  anything."  The  Yankee  student  was 
sought,  introduced,  and  had  the  mechanical  problem 


JAMES    K.   POLK. 


m  imm 

OF  THE 
UNlVE^wSiTY  OF  JIUKQ3S 


THE    BALANCE    OF    POWER 


321 


laid  before  him.     He  modestly  disclaimed  his  host-  ch.  xviii. 

ess's  extravagant  praises,  and  told  his  visitors  that 

he  had  never  seen   either  cotton  or  cotton-seed 

in  his  life.      Nevertheless,  he  went  to  work  with 

such  earnestness  and  success,  that  in  a  few  months 

Mrs.  Greene  had  the  satisfaction  of  being  able  to 

invite   a  gathering  of    gentlemen  from   different 

parts  of  the  State  to  behold  with  their  own  eyes 

the  working  of  the  newly  invented  cotton-gin,  with 

which  a  negro  man  turning  a  crank  could  clean 

fifty  pounds  of  cotton  per  day. 

This  solution  of  the  last  problem  in  cheap  cotton- 
culture  made  it  at  once  the  leading  crop  of  the 
South.  That  favored  region  quickly  drove  all  com- 
petitors out  of  the  market ;  and  the  rise  of  English 
imports  of  raw  cotton,  from  thirty  million  pounds 
in  1790  to  over  one  thousand  million  pounds  in  1860, 
shows  the  development  and  increase  of  this  special 
industry,  with  all  its  related  interests.^  It  was 
not  till  fifteen  years  after  the  invention  of  the 
cotton-gin  that  the  African  slave-trade  ceased  by 
limitation  of  law.  Within  that  period  many  thou- 
sands of  negro  captives  had  been  added  to  the 
population  of  the  South  by  direct  importation,  and 
nearly  thirty  thousand  slave  inhabitants  added  by 
the  acquisition  of  Louisiana,  hastening  the  forma- 
tion of  new  slave  States  south  of  the  Ohio  River  in  ^sS^p.^iT 
due  proportion.^ 


1808. 


Compen- 
dium, 


1  The  Virginia  price  of  a  male 
"  field  hand  "  in  1790  was  $250  ; 
in  1860  his  value  in  the  domestic 
market  had  risen  to  $1600. — 
Sherrard  Clemens,  speech  in 
H.  R.  Appendix  "Congressional 
Globe,"  1860-1,  pp.  104-5. 

2  No  word  of  the  authors  could 

Vol.  I.—  21 


add  to  the  force  and  eloquence 
of  the  following  from  a  recent 
letter  of  the  son  of  the  inventor 
of  the  cotton-gin  (to  the  Art 
Superintendent  of  "  The  Cen- 
tury"), stating  the  claims  of 
his  father's  memory  to  the  grati- 
tude of  the  South,   hitherto  ap- 


322  ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

ch.  XVIII.  It  is  a  curious  historical  fact,  that  under  the  very 
remarkable  material  growth  of  the  United  States 
which  now  took  place,  the  political  influence  re- 
mained so  evenly  balanced  between  the  North 
and  the  South  for  more  than  a  generation.  Other 
grave  issues  indeed  absorbed  the  public  attention, 
but  the  abeyance  of  the  slavery  question  is  due 
rather  to  the  fact  that  no  considerable  advantage  as 
yet  fell  to  either  side.  Eight  new  States  were  organ- 
ized, four  north  and  four  south  of  the  Ohio  River, 
and  admitted  in  nearly  alternate  order  :  Vermont 
in  1791,  free;  Kentucky  in  1792,  slave;  Tennessee  in 
1796,  slave;  Ohio  in  1802,  free;  Louisiana  in  1812, 
slave ;  Indiana  in  1816,  free ;  Mississippi  in  1817, 
slave ;  Illinois  in  1818,  free.  Alabama  was  already 
authorized  to  be  admitted  with  slavery,  and  this 
would  make  the  number  of  free  and  slave  States 
equal,  giving  eleven  States  to  the  North  and  eleven 
to  the  South. 

The  Territory  of  Missouri,   containing  the  old 

parently  unfelt,  and  certainly  un-  of  the  world.      Lord  Macaulay 

recognized :  said    of    Eli    Whitney  :     *  What 

"  New  Haven,  Conn.,  Peter    the    Great    did   to    make 

"Dee.  4,  1886.  Eussia  dominant,  Eli  Whitney's 

"...  I  send  you  a  photograph  invention  of  the  cotton-gin   has 

taken    from    a    portrait    of    my  more  than  equaled  in  its  relation 

father,   painted   about  the  year  to  the  power  and  progress  of  the 

1821,  by  King,  of  Washington,  United  States.'    He  has  been  the 

when  my  father,  the  inventor  of  greatest  benefactor  of  the  South, 

the  cotton-gin,  was  fifty-five  years  but  it  never  has,  to  my  knowl- 

old.     He  died  January  25,  1825.  edge,    acknowledged    his    bene- 

The  cotton-gin  was  invented  in  faction  in  a  public  manner  to  the 

1793  ;  and  though  it  has  been  in  extent  it  deserves — no  monument 

use  for  nearly  one  hundred  years,  has  been  erected  to  his  memory, 

it   is    virtually     unimproved.  .  .  no  town  or  city  named  after  him. 

Hence  the    great    merit   of    the  though  the  force  of  his  genius  has 

original  invention.      It  has  made  caused  many  towns  and  cities  to 

the   South,  financially  and  com-  rise  and  flourish  in  the  South.  .  . 
mercially.     It  has  made  England  "  Yours  very  truly, 

rich,  and  changed  the  commerce  "  E.  W.  Whitney." 


THE   BALANCE    OF    POWER  323 

French  colonies  at  and  near  St.  Louis,  had  attained  ch.  xviii. 
a  population  of  60,000,  and  was  eager  to  be  ad- 
mitted as  a  State.  She  had  made  application  in 
1817,  and  now  in  1819  it  was  proposed  to  authorize 
her  to  form  a  constitution.  Arkansas  was  also 
being  nursed  as  an  applicant,  and  the  prospective 
loss  by  the  North  and  gain  by  the  South  of  the 
balance  of  power  caused  the  slavery  question  sud- 
denly to  flare  up  as  a  national  issue.  There  were 
hot  debates  in  Congress,  emphatic  resolutions  by 
State  legislatures,  deep  agitation  among  the  whole 
people,  and  open  threats  by  the  South  to  dissolve 
the  Union.  Extreme  Northern  men  insisted  upon 
a  restriction  of  slavery  to  be  applied  to  both  Mis- 
souri and  Arkansas;  radical  Southern  members 
contended  that  Congress  had  no  power  to  impose 
any  conditions  on  new  States.  The  North  had 
control  of  the  House,  the  South  of  the  Senate.  A 
middle  party  thereupon  sprang  up,  proposing  to 
divide  the  Louisiana  purchase  between  freedom 
and  slavery  by  the  line  of  36°  30',  and  authorizing 
the  admission  of  Missouri  with  slavery  out  of  the 
northern  half.  Fastening  this  proposition  upon  the 
bill  to  admit  Maine  as  a  free  State,  the  measure 
was,  after  a  struggle,  carried  through  Congress  (in 
a  separate  act  approved  March  6, 1820),  and  became 
the  famous  Missouri  Compromise.  Maine  and  Mis- 
souri were  both  admitted.  Each  section  thereby 
not  only  gained  two  votes  in  the  Senate,  but  also 
asserted  its  right  to  spread  its  peculiar  polity  with- 
out question  or  hindrance  within  the  prescribed 
limits ;  and  the  motto,  "  No  extension  of  slavery," 
was  postponed  forty  years,  to  the  Republican  cam- 
paign of  1860. 


324  ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

ch.  xvin.  From  this  time  forward,  the  maintenance  of 
this  balance  of  power,  —  the  numerical  equality 
of  the  slave  States  with  the  free, —  though  not 
announced  in  platforms  as  a  party  doctrine,  was 
nevertheless  steadily  followed  as  a  policy  by  the 
representatives  of  the  South.  In  pursuance  of  this 
system,  Michigan  and  Arkansas,  the  former  a  free 
and  the  latter  a  slave  State,  were,  on  the  same  day, 
June  15,  1836,  authorized  to  be  admitted.  These 
tactics  were  again  repeated  in  the  year  1845,  when, 
on  the  3d  of  March,  Iowa,  a  free  State,  and  Florida, 
a  slave  State,  were  authorized  to  be  admitted  by 
one  act  of  Congress,  its  approval  being  the  last 
official  act  of  President  Tyler.  This  tacit  compro- 
mise, however,  was  accompanied  by  another  very 
important  victory  of  the  same  policy.  The  South- 
ern politicians  saw  clearly  enough  that  with  the 
admission  of  Florida  the  slave  territory  was  ex- 
hausted, while  an  immense  untouched  portion  of 
the  Louisiana  purchase  still  stretched  away  to  the 
north-west  towards  the  Pacific  above  the  Missouri 
Compromise  line,  which  consecrated  it  to  freedom. 
The  North,  therefore,  still  had  an  imperial  area 
from  which  to  organize  future  free  States,  while 
the  South  had  not  a  foot  more  territory  from  which 
to  create  slave  States. 

Sagaciously  anticipating  this  contingency,  the 
Southern  States  had  been  largely  instrumental  in 
setting  up  the  independent  State  of  Texas,  and 
were  now  urgent  in  their  demand  for  her  annexa- 
tion to  the  Union.  Two  days  before  the  signing 
of  the  Iowa  and  Florida  bill,  Congress  passed,  and 
President  Tyler  signed,  a  joint  resolution,  author- 
izing the  acquisition,  annexation,  and  admission  of 


THE    BALANCE    OF    POWER  325 

Texas.  But  even  this  was  not  all.  The  joint  reso-  ch.  xviil 
lution  contained  a  guarantee  that  "  new  States,  of 
convenient  size,  not  exceeding  four  in  number,  in 
addition  to  the  said  State  of  Texas,"  and  to  be 
formed  out  of  her  territory,  should  hereafter  be 
entitled  to  admission  —  the  Missouri  Compromise 
line  to  govern  the  slavery  question  in  them.  The 
State  of  Texas  was,  by  a  later  resolution,  formally 
admitted  to  the  Union,  December  29,  1845.  At 
this  date,  therefore,  the  slave  States  gained  an 
actual  majority  of  one,  there  being  fourteen  free 
States  and  fifteen  slave  States,  with  at  least  equal 
territorial  prospects  through  future  annexation. 

If  the  North  was  alarmed  at  being  thus  placed 
in  a  minority,  there  was  ample  reason  for  still 
further  disquietude.  The  annexation  of  Texas  had 
provoked  the  Mexican  war,  and  President  Polk,  in 
anticipation  of  further  important  acquisition  of 
territory  to  the  South  and  West,  asked  of  Congress 
an  appropriation  of  two  millions  to  be  used  in 
negotiations  to  that  end.  An  attempt  to  impose  a 
condition  to  these  negotiations  that  slavery  should 
never  exist  in  any  territory  to  be  thus  acquired 
was  the  famous  Wilmot  Proviso.  This  particular 
measure  failed,  but  the  war  ended,  and  New  Mexico 
and  California  were  added  to  the  Union  as  un- 
organized Territories.  Meanwhile  the  admission  of 
Wisconsin  in  1848  had  once  more  restored  the 
equilibrium  between  the  free  and  the  sla.ve  States, 
there  being  now  fifteen  of  each. 

It  must  not  be  supposed  that  the  important 
political  measures  and  results  thus  far  summa- 
rized were  accomplished  by  quiet  and  harmonious 
legislation.    Rising  steadily  after  1820,  the  contro- 


326  ABKAHAM    LINCOLN 

CH.  XVIII.  versy  over  slavery  became  deep  and  bitter,  both  in 
Congress  and  the  country.  Involving  not  merely 
a  policy  of  government,  but  a  question  of  abstract 
morals,  statesmen,  philanthropists,  divines,  the 
press,  societies,  churches,  and  legislative  bodies 
joined  in  the  discussion.  Slavery  was  assailed 
and  defended  in  behalf  of  the  welfare  of  the  state, 
and  in  the  name  of  religion.  In  Congress  espe- 
cially it  had  now  been  a  subject  of  angi-y  conten- 
tion for  a  whole  generation.  It  obtruded  itself 
into  all  manner  of  questions,  and  clung  obstinately 
to  numberless  resolutions  and  biUs.  Time  and 
again  it  had  brought  members  into  excited  discus- 
sion, and  to  the  very  verge  of  personal  conflict  in 
the  legislative  halls.  It  had  occasioned  numerous 
threats  to  dissolve  the  Union,  and  in  one  or  more 
instances  caused  members  actually  to  retire  from 
the  House  of  Representatives.  It  had  given  rise 
to  resolutions  of  censure,  to  resignations,  and  had 
been  the  occasion  of  some  of  the  gi-eatest  legisla- 
tive debates  of  the  nation.  It  had  virtually  created 
and  annexed  the  largest  State  in  the  Union.  In 
several  States  it  had  instigated  abuse,  intolerance, 
persecutions,  trials,  mobs,  murders,  destruction  of 
property,  imprisonment  of  freemen,  retaliatory 
legislation,  and  one  weU-defined  and  formidable 
attempt  at  revolution.  It  originated  party  fac- 
tions, political  schools,  and  constitutional  doc- 
trines, and  made  and  marred  the  fame  of  great 
statesmen. 

New  Mexico,  when  acquired,  contained  one  of 
the  oldest  towns  on  the  continent,  and  a  consid- 
erable population  of  Spanish  origin.  California, 
almost  simultaneously  with  her  acquisition,  was 


THE    BALANCE    OF    POWER  327 

peopled  in  the  course  of  a  few  months  by  the  ch.  win. 
world-renowned  gold  discoveries.  Very  unexpect- 
edly, therefore,  to  politicians  of  all  grades  and 
opinions,  the  slavery  question  was  once  more 
before  the  nation  in  the  year  1850,  over  the  propo- 
sition to  admit  both  to  the  Union  as  States.  As 
the  result  of  the  long  conflict  of  opinion  hitherto 
maintained,  the  beliefs  and  desires  of  the  contend- 
ing sections  had  by  this  time  become  formulated 
in  distinct  political  doctrines.  The  North  con- 
tended that  Congress  might  and  should  prohibit 
slavery  in  all  the  territories  of  the  Union,  as  had 
been  done  in  the  Northern  half  by  the  Ordinance 
of  1787  and  by  the  Missouri  Compromise.  The 
South  declared  that  any  such  exclusion  would  not 
only  be  unjust  and  impolitic,  but  absolutely  uncon- 
stitutional, because  property  in  slaves  might  enter 
and  must  be  protected  in  the  territories  in  com- 
mon with  all  other  property.  To  the  theoretical 
dispute  was  added  a  practical  contest.  By  the 
existing  Mexican  laws  slavery  was  already  pro- 
hibited in  New  Mexico,  and  California  promptly 
formed  a  free  State  constitution.  Under  these 
circumstances  the  North  sought  to  organize  the 
former  as  a  Territory,  and  admit  the  latter  as  a 
State,  while  the  South  resisted  and  endeavored  to 
extend  the  Missouri  Compromise  line,  which  would 
place  New  Mexico  and  the  southern  half  of  Cali- 
fornia under  the  tutelage  and  influence  of  slavery. 
These  were  the  principal  points  of  difference 
which  caused  the  great  slavery  agitation  of  1850. 
The  whole  country  was  convulsed  in  discussion; 
and  again  more  open  threats  and  more  ominous 
movements  towards  disunion  came  from  the  South. 


328  ABEAHAM    LINCOLN 

ch.  XVIII.  The  most  popular  statesman  of  that  day,  Henry 
Clay,  of  Kentucky,  a  slaveholder  opposed  to  the 
extension  of  slavery,  now,  however,  assumed  the 
leadership  of  a  party  of  compromise,  and  the 
quarrel  was  adjusted  and  quieted  by  a  combined 
series  of  Congressional  acts.  1.  California  was 
admitted  as  a  free  State.  2.  The  Territories  of 
New  Mexico  and  Utah  were  organized,  leaving  the 
Mexican  prohibition  of  slavery  in  force.  3.  The 
domestic  slave-trade  in  the  District  of  Columbia 
was  abolished.  4.  A  more  stringent  fugitive-slave 
law  was  passed,  5.  For  the  adjustment  of  her 
State  boundaries  Texas  received  ten  millions  of 
dollars. 

These  were  the  famous  compromise  measures  of 
1850.  It  has  been  gi'avely  asserted  that  this 
indemnity  of  ten  millions,  suddenly  trebling  the 
value  of  the  Texas  debt,  and  thereby  affording  an 
Greeley.  Unprecedented  opportunity  for  speculation  in  the 
conflkit,"^  bonds  of  that  State,  was  "the  propelling  force 
208;'  ^'  whereby  these  acts  were  pushed  through  Congress 
in  defiance  of  the  original  convictions  of  a  major- 
ity of  its  members."  But  it  must  also  be  admitted 
that  the  popular  desire  for  tranquillitj",  concord, 
and  union  in  all  sections  never  exerted  so  much 
influence  upon  Congress  as  then.  This  compro- 
mise was  not  at  first  heartily  accepted  by  the 
people  ;  Southern  opinion  being  offended  by  the 
abandonment  of  the  "property"  doctrine,  and 
Northern  sentiment  irritated  by  certain  harsh 
features  of  the  fugitive-slave  law.  But  the  rising 
Union  feeling  quickly  swept  away  all  ebullitions 
of  discontent,  and  during  two  or  three  years  peo- 
ple and  politicians  fondly  dreamed  they  had,  in 


THE    BALANCE    OF    POWER  329 

current  phraseology,  reached  a  "  finality  "  ^  on  this  ch.  xvm. 
vexed  quarrel.  The  nation  settled  itself  for  a 
period  of  quiet  to  repair  the  waste  and  utilize  the 
conquests  of  the  Mexican  war.  It  became  ab- 
sorbed in  the  expansion  of  its  commerce,  the 
development  of  its  manufactures,  and  the  growth 
of  its  emigration,  all  quickened  by  the  riches  of 
its  marvelous  gold-fields;  until  unexpectedly  and 
suddenly  it  found  itself  plunged  once  again  into 
political  controversies  more  distracting  and  more 
ominous  than  the  worst  it  had  yet  experienced. 

1  Grave  doubts,  however,  found  occasional  expression,  and  none 
perhaps  more  forcibly  than  in  the  following  newspaper  epigram 
describing  "  Finality  "  : 

To  kill  twice  dead  a  rattlesnake. 
And  off  his  scaly  skin  to  take, 
And  through  his  head  to  drive  a  stake, 
And  every  bone  within  him  break, 
And  of  his  flesh  mincemeat  to  make, 
To  burn,  to  sear,  to  boil,  and  bake. 
Then  in  a  heap  the  whole  to  rake. 
And  over  it  the  besom  shake. 
And  sink  it  fathoms  in  the  lake  — 
Whence  after  all,  quite  wide  awake, 
Comes  back  that  very  same  old  snake ! 


CHAPTER    XIX 

THE    REPEAL    OF    THE    MISSOURI    COMPROMISE 

Chap.  xEx.  rTIHE  loHg  coiitest  in  Congress  over  the  com- 
JL  promise  measures  of  1850,  and  the  reluctance 
of  a  minority,  aUke  in  the  North  and  the  South,  to 
accept  them,  had  in  reahty  seriously  demoralized 
both  the  great  political  parties  of  the  country. 
The  Democrats  especially,  defeated  by  the  fresh 
military  laurels  of  General  Taylor  in  1848,  were 
much  exercised  to  discov^er  their  most  available 
candidate  as  the  presidential  election  of  1852  ap- 
proached. The  leading  names,  Cass,  Buchanan, 
and  Marcy,  having  been  long  before  the  public, 
were  becoming  a  little  stale.  In  this  contingency, 
a  considerable  following  grouped  itself  about  an 
entirely  new  man,  Stephen  A.  Douglas,  of  Illinois. 
Emigrating  from  Vermont  to  the  West,  Douglas 
had  run  a  career  remarkable  for  political  success. 
Only  in  his  thirty-ninth  year,  he  had  served  as 
member  of  the  legislature,  as  State's-Attorney,  as 
Secretary  of  State,  and  as  judge  of  the  Supreme 
Court  in  Illinois,  and  had  since  been  three  times 
elected  to  Congi'ess  and  once  to  the  Senate  of  the 
United  States.  Nor  did  he  owe  his  political  for- 
tunes entirely  to  accident.  Among  his  many 
qualities  of  leadership  were  strong  physical  endur- 

330 


THE    EEPEAL    OF    THE    MISSOURI    COMPROMISE  331 

ance,  untiring  industry,  a  persistent  boldness,  a  chap.xix. 
ready  facility  in  public  speaking,  unfailing  political 
shrewdness,  an  unusual  power  in  running  debate, 
with  liberal  instincts  and  progressive  purposes.  It 
was  therefore  not  surprising  that  he  should  attract 
the  admiration  and  support  of  the  young,  the  ardent, 
and  especially  the  restless  and  ambitious  members 
of  his  party.  His  career  in  Congress  was  suffi- 
ciently conspicuous.  As  Chairman  of  the  Commit- 
tee on  Territories  in  the  Senate,  he  had  borne  a 
prominent  part  in  the  enactment  of  the  compro- 
mise measures  of  1850,  and  had  just  met  and  over- 
come a  threatened  party  schism  in  his  own  State, 
which  that  legislation  had  there  produced. 

In  their  eagerness  to  push  his  claims  to  the 
presidency,  the  partisans  of  Douglas  committed 
a  great  error.  Rightly  appreciating  the  growing 
power  of  the  press,  they  obtained  control  of  the 
"  Democratic  Review,"  a  monthly  magazine  then 
prominent  as  a  party  organ,  and  published  in  it  a 
series  of  articles  attacking  the  rival  Democratic 
candidates  in  very  flashy  rhetoric.  These  were 
stigmatized  as  "  old  fogies,"  who  must  give  ground 
to  a  nominee  of  "Young  America."  They  were 
reminded  that  the  party  expects  a  "new  man." 
"  Age  is  to  be  honored,  but  senility  is  pitiable  " ; 
"  statesmen  of  a  previous  generation  must  get  out 
of  the  way  "  ;  the  Democratic  party  was  owned  by 
a  set  of  "  old  clothes-horses  " ;  "  they  couldn't  pay 
their  political  promises  in  four  Democratic  ad- 
ministrations";  and  the  names  of  Cass  and  Marcy, 
Buchanan  and  Butler,  were  freely  mixed  in  with 
such  epithets  as  "pretenders,"  "hucksters,"  "in- 
truders," and  "  vile  charlatans." 


332  ABKAHAM    LINCOLN 

Chap.  XIX.  Such  characterization  of  such  men  soon  created 
a  flagrant  scandal  in  the  Democratic  party,  which 
was  duly  aired  both  in  the  newspapers  and  in  Con- 
gress. It  definitely  fixed  the  phrases  "  old  fogy  " 
and  "Young  America"  in  our  slang  literature. 
The  personal  friends  of  Douglas  hastened  to  ex- 
plain and  assert  his  innocence  of  any  complicity 
with  this  political  raid,  but  they  were  not  more 
than  half  believed ;  and  the  war  of  factions,  begun 
in  January,  raged  with  increasing  bitterness  till  the 
Democratic  National  Convention  met  at  Baltimore 
in  June,  and  undoubtedly  exerted  a  decisive  influ- 
ence over  the  deliberations  of  that  body. 

The  only  serious  competitors  for  the  nomination 
were  the  "  old  fogies  "  Cass,  Marcy,  and  Buchanan 
on  the  one  hand,  and  Douglas,  the  pet  of  "  Young 
America,"  on  the  other.  It  soon  became  evident 
that  opinion  was  so  divided  among  these  four  that 
a  nomination  could  only  be  reached  through  long 
and  tedious  ballotings.  Beginning  with  some  20 
votes,  Douglas  steadily  gained  adherents  till  on 
the  30th  ballot  he  received  92.  From  this  point, 
however,  his  strength  fell  away.  Unable  himself 
to  succeed,  he  was  nevertheless  sufiiciently  power- 
ful to  defeat  his  adversaries.  The  exasperation 
had  been  too  great  to  permit  a  concentration 
or  compromise  on  any  of  the  "  seniors."  Cass 
reached  only  131  votes;  Marcy,  98;  Buchanan, 
104 ;  and  finally,  on  the  49th  ballot,  occurred  the 
memorable  nearly  unanimous  selection  of  Frankhn 
Pierce  —  not  because  of  any  merit  of  his  own,  but 
to  break  the  insurmountable  dead-lock  of  factional 
hatred.  Young  America  gained  a  nominal  tri- 
umph, old  fogydom  a  real  revenge,  and  the  South 


THE    REPEAL    OF    THE    MISSOUEI    COMPROMISE  333 

a  serviceable  Northern  ally.  Douglas  and  his  chap.xix. 
friends  were  discomfited  but  not  dismayed.  Their 
management  had  been  exceedingly  maladroit,  as 
a  more  modest  championship  would  without  doubt 
have  secured  him  the  coveted  nomination.  Yet 
sagacious  politicians  foresaw  that  on  the  whole  he 
was  strengthened  by  his  defeat.  From  that  time 
forward  he  was  a  recognized  presidential  aspirant 
and  competitor,  young  enough  patiently  to  bide 
his  time,  and  of  sufficient  prestige  to  make  his  flag 
the  rallying  point  of  all  the  free-lances  in  the 
Democratic  party. 

It  is  to  this  presidential  aspiration  of  Mr.  Douglas 
that  we  must  look  as  the  explanation  of  his  agency 
in  bringing  about  the  repeal  of  the  Missouri  Com- 
promise. As  already  said,  after  some  factious  op- 
position the  measures  of  1850  had  been  accepted 
by  the  people  as  a  finality  of  the  slavery  question. 
Around  this  alleged  settlement,  distasteful  as  it 
was  to  many,  public  opinion  gradually  crystallized. 
Both  the  National  Conventions  of  1852  solemnly 
resolved  that  they  would  discountenance  and  resist, 
in  Congress  or  out  of  it,  whenever,  wherever,  or 
however,  or  under  whatever  color  or  shape,  any 
further  renewal  of  the  slavery  agitation.  This 
determination  was  echoed  and  reechoed,  affirmed 
and  reaffirmed,  by  the  recognized  organs  of  the 
public  voice  —  from  the  village  newspaper  to  the 
presidential  message,  from  the  country  debating 
school  to  the  measured  utterances  of  senatorial 
discussion. 

In  support  of  this  alleged  "  finality  "  no  one  had 
taken  a  more  decided  stand  than  Senator  Douglas 
himself.    Said  he:  "In  taking  leave  of  this  subject 


334 


ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 


Chap.  XIX. 


Appendix, 

"  Cougres- 

sioual 

Globe," 

1851-2,  p.  68. 


Douglas, 
Senate 
speech, 
March  13, 
1850.    Ap- 
pendix, 
"  Congres- 
sional 
Globe," 
1849-50,  pp. 
369  to  372. 


I  wish  to  state  that  I  have  determined  never  to 
make  another  speech  upon  the  slavery  question ; 
and  I  will  now  add  the  hope  that  the  necessity  for 
it  will  never  exist.  .  .  So  long  as  our  opponents 
do  not  agitate  for  repeal  or  modification,  why 
should  we  agitate  for  any  purpose?  We  claim 
that  the  compromise  [of  1850]  is  a  final  settlement. 
Is  a  final  settlement  open  to  discussion  and  agita- 
tion and  controversy  by  its  friends  ?  What  manner 
of  settlement  is  that  which  does  not  settle  the 
difficulty  and  quiet  the  dispute?  Are  not  the 
friends  of  the  compromise  becoming  the  agitators, 
and  will  not  the  country  hold  us  responsible  for 
that  which  we  condemn  and  denounce  in  the  aboli- 
tionists and  Free-soilers  ?  These  are  matters  wor- 
thy of  our  consideration.  Those  who  preach  peace 
should  not  be  the  first  to  commence  and  reopen  an 
old  quarrel."  In  his  Senate  speeches,  during  the 
compromise  debates  of  1850,  while  generally  advo- 
cating his  theory  of  "non-intervention,"  he  had 
sounded  the  whole  gamut  of  the  slavery  discussion, 
defending  the  various  measures  of  adjustment 
against  the  attacks  of  the  Southern  extremists,  and 
specifically  defending  the  Missouri  Compromise. 
More  than  this ;  he  had  declared  in  distinct  words 
that  the  principle  of  territorial  prohibition  was  no 
violation  of  Southern  rights ;  and  denounced  the 
proposition  of  Calhoun  to  put  a  "  balance  of 
power "  clause  into  the  Constitution  as  "  a  retro- 
grade movement  in  an  age  of  progress  that  would 
astonish  the  world."  These  repeated  affirmations, 
taken  in  connection  with  his  famous  description 
of  the  Missouri  Compromise  in  1849,  in  which  he 
declared  it  to  have  had  "  an   origin  akin  to  the 


THE    REPEAL    OF    THE    MISSOURI    COMPROMISE  335 

Constitution,"  and  to  have  become  "canonized  in  chap.xix. 

the  hearts  of  the  American  people  as  a  sacred  thing 

which  no  ruthless  hand  would  ever   be   reckless  springfleid 

speech, 

enough  to    disturb,"    all    seemed,    in   the  public  ^%]^ois^- 
mind,  to  fix  his  position  definitely;   no  one  im-  "Register." 
agined  that  Douglas  would  so  soon  become  the 
subject  of  his  own  anathemas. 

The  full  personal  details  of  this  event  are  lost 
to  history.  We  have  only  a  faint  and  shadowy 
outline  of  isolated  movements  of  a  few  chief  actors, 
a  few  vague  suggestions  and  fragmentary  steps  in 
the  formation  and  unfolding  of  the  ill-omened  plot. 

As  the  avowed  representative  of  the  restless  and 
ambitious  elements  of  the  country,  as  the  champion 
of  "  Young  America,"  Douglas  had  so  far  as  pos- 
sible in  his  Congressional  career  made  himself  the 
apostle  of  modern  "progi*ess."  He  was  a  believer 
in  "  manifest  destiny "  and  a  zealous  advocate  of 
the  Monroe  doctrine.  He  desired  —  so  the  news- 
papers averred— that  the  Caribbean  Sea  should  be 
declared  an  American  lake,  and  nothing  so  de- 
lighted him  as  to  pull  the  beard  of  the  British  lion. 
These  topics,  while  they  furnished  themes  for  cam- 
paign speeches,  for  the  present  led  to  no  practical 
legislation.  In  his  position  as  chairman  of  the 
Senate  Committee  on  Territories,  however,  he  had 
control  of  kindred  measures  of  present  and  vital 
interest  to  the  people  of  the  West ;  namely,  the 
opening  of  new  routes  of  travel  and  emigration, 
and  of  new  territories  for  settlement.  An  era  of 
wonder  had  just  dawned,  connecting  itself  directly 
with  these  subjects.  The  acquisition  of  California 
and  the  discovery  of  gold  had  turned  the  eyes  of  the 
whole  civilized  world  to  the  Pacific  coast.    Plains 


336  ABKAHAM    LINCOLN 

Chap.  XIX.  and  mountaius  were  swarming  with  adventurers 
and  emigrants.  Oregon,  Utali,  New  Mexico,  and 
Minnesota  had  just  been  organized,  and  were  in 
a  feeble  way  contesting  the  sudden  fame  of  the 
Golden  State.  The  Western  border  was  astir,  and 
wild  visions  of  lands  and  cities  and  mines  and 
wealth  and  power  were  disturbing  the  dreams  of 
the  pioneer  in  his  frontier  cabin,  and  hurrying  him 
off  on  the  long,  romantic  quest  across  the  continent. 
Hitherto,  stringent  Federal  laws  had  kept  set- 
tlers and  unlicensed  traders  out  of  the  Indian 
territory,  which  lay  beyond  the  western  boundaries 
of  Arkansas,  Missouri,  and  Iowa,  and  which  the 
policy  of  our  early  Presidents  fixed  upon  as  the 
final  asylum  of  the  red  men  retreating  before  the 
advance  of  white  settlements.  But  now  the  un- 
controllable stream  of  emigration  had  broken  into 
and  through  this  reservation,  creating  in  a  few 
years  well-defined  routes  of  travel  to  New  Mexico, 
Utah,  California,  and  Oregon.  Though  from  the 
long  march  there  came  constant  cries  of  danger  and 
distress,  of  starvation  and  Indian  massacre,  there 
was  neither  halting  nor  delay.  The  courageous 
pioneers  pressed  forward  all  the  more  earnestly,  and 
to  such  purpose  that  in  less  than  twenty-five  years 
the  Pacific  Eailroad  followed  Fremont's  first  ex- 
ploration through  the  South  Pass. 

Douglas,  himself  a  migratory  child  of  fortune,  was 
in  thorough  sympathy  with  this  somewhat  prema- 
ture Western  longing  of  the  people  ;  and  as  chair- 
man of  the  Committee  on  Territories  was  the 
recipient  of  aU  the  letters,  petitions,  and  personal 
solicitations  from  the  various  interests  which  were 
seeking  their  advantage  in  this  exodus  toward  the 


FRANKLIN    PIERCE. 


THE  i\''''M'i 
OF  THE 
UJilVE?iSlTY  OF  IIU^^QIS 


THE    EEPEAL    OF    THE    MISSOURI    COMPEOMISE  337 

setting  sun.  He  was  the  natural  center  for  all  the  chap.xix. 
embryo  mail  contractors,  office-holders,  Indian 
traders,  land-sharks,  and  railroad  visionaries  whose 
coveted  opportunities  lay  in  the  Western  territories. 
It  is  but  just  to  his  fame,  however,  to  say  that  he 
comprehended  equally  well  the  true  philosophical 
and  political  necessities  which  now  demanded  the 
opening  of  Kansas  and  Nebraska  as  a  secure  high- 
way and  protecting  bridge  to  the  Rocky  Moun- 
tains and  our  new-found  El  Dorado,  no  less  than 
as  a  bond  of  union  between  the  older  States  and 
the  improvised  "Young  America"  on  the  Pacific 
coast.  The  subject  was  not  yet  ripe  for  action 
during  the  stormy  politics  of  1850-1,  and  had 
again  to  be  postponed  for  the  presidential  cam- 
paign of  1852.  But  after  Pierce  was  triumphantly 
elected,  with  a  Democratic  Congress  to  sustain  him, 
the  legislative  calm  which  both  parties  had  adjured 
in  their  platforms  seemed  favorable  for  pushing 
measures  of  local  interest.  The  control  of  legisla- 
tion for  the  territories  was  for  the  moment  com- 
pletely in  the  hands  of  Douglas.  He  was  himself 
chaii'man  of  the  Committee  of  the  Senate ;  and  his 
special  personal  friend  and  political  lieutenant  in 
his  own  State,  William  A.  Richardson,  of  Illinois, 
was  chairman  of  the  Territorial  Committee  of  the 
House.  He  could  therefore  choose  his  own  time 
and  mode  of  introducing  measures  of  this  character 
in  either  house  of  Congress,  under  the  majority 
control  of  his  party — a  fact  to  be  constantly  borne 
in  mind  when  we  consider  the  origin  and  progress 
of  "  the  three  Nebraska  bills." 

The  journal  discloses  that  Richardson,  of  Illinois, 
chairman  of  the  Committee  on  Territories  of  the 
Vol.  I.— 22 


338  ABEAHAM    LINCOLN 

Chap.  XIX.  HousG  of  Representatives,  on  February  2,  1853, 
Fei^'a'^'ssa,  introduced  into  the  House  "A  bill  to  organize  the 
p.  474.  Territory  of  Nebraska."  After  due  reference,  and 
^p."542^4.^'  some  desultory  debate  on  the  8th,  it  was  taken  up 
™'^p.565?'  ^^^  passed  by  the  House  on  the  10th.  From  the 
discussion  we  learn  that  the  boundaries  were  the 
Missouri  River  on  the  east,  the  Rocky  Mountains 
on  the  west,  the  line  of  36°  30'  or  southern  line  of 
Missouri  on  the  south,  and  the  line  of  43°,  or  near 
the  northern  line  of  Iowa,  on  the  north.  Several 
members  opposed  it,  because  the  Indian  title  to  the 
lands  was  not  yet  extinguished,  and  because  it  em- 
braced reservations  pledged  to  Indian  occupancy 
in  perpetuity ;  also  on  the  general  ground  that  it 
contained  but  few  white  inhabitants,  and  its  or- 
ganization was  therefore  a  useless  expense.  Howard, 
of  Texas,  made  the  most  strenuous  opposition,  urg- 
ing that  since  it  contained  but  about  six  hundred 
souls,  its  southern  boundary  should  be  fixed  at  39° 
30',  not  to  trench  upon  the  Indian  reservations. 
Hall,  of  Missouri,  replied  in  support  of  the  bill: 
"We  want  the  organization  of  the  Territory  of 
Nebraska  not  merely  for  the  protection  of  the  few 
people  who  reside  there,  but  also  for  the  protection 
of  Oregon  and  California  in  time  of  war,  and  the 
lo.p.  55^'  protection  of  our  commerce  and  the  fifty  or  sixty 
thousand  emigrants  who  annually  cross  the  plains." 
He  added  that  its  limits  were  purposely  made  large 
to  embrace  the  great  lines  of  travel  to  Oregon,  New 
Mexico,  and  California ;  since  the  South  Pass  was 
in  42°  30',  the  Territory  had  to  extend  to  43°  north. 
The  incident,  however,  of  special  historical  sig- 
nificance had  occurred  in  the  debate  of  the  8th, 
when  a  member  rose  and  said :    "I  wish  to  inquire 


THE    EEPEAL    OF    THE    MISSOURI    COMPROMISE  339 

of  the  gentleman  from  Oliio  [Mr.  Giddings],  who,  chap.xix. 
I  believe,  is  a  member  of  the  Committee  on  Terri- 
tories, why  the  Ordinance  of  1787  is  not  incorpo- 
rated in  this  bill  ?    I  should  like  to  know  whether 
he  or  the  committee  were  intimidated  on  account    "oiobe," 
of  the  platforms  of  1852  ? "    To  which  Mr.  Giddings  ^^p"  5«?''' 
replied  that  the  south  line  of  the   territory  was 
36°  30',  and  was  already  covered  by  the  Missouri 
Compromise  prohibition.      "  This  law  stands  per- 
petually, and  I  do  not  think  that  this  act  would 
receive  any  increased  validity  by  a  reenactment. 
There  I  leave  the  matter.     It  is  very  clear  that  the 
territory  included  in  this  treaty  [ceding  Louisiana] 
must  be  forever  free  unless  the  law  be  repealed." 
With  this  explicit  understanding  from  a  member  of 
the  committee,  apparently  accepted  as  conclusive 
by  the  whole  House,  and  certainly  not  objected  to 
by  the  chairman,  Mr,  Richardson,  who  was  carefully 
watching  the   current  of  debate,  the  bill  passed   ibid.,  Feb. 
on  the  10th,  ninety-eight  yeas  to  forty-three  nays.      p'  ses.' 
Led  by  a  few  members  from  that  region,  in  the 
main  the  West  voted  for  it  and  the  South  against 
it;  while  the  greater  number,  absorbed  in   other 
schemes,   were   wholly   indifferent,   and  probably 
cast  their  votes  upon  personal  solicitation. 

On  the  following  day  the  bill  was  hui'ried  over  to 
the  Senate,  referred  to  Mr.  Douglas's  committee, 
and  by  him  reported  back  without  amendment,  on 
February  17th ;  but  the  session  was  almost  ended 
before  he  was  able  to  gain  the  attention  of  the 
Senate  for  its  discussion.  Finally,  on  the  night 
before  the  inauguration  of  President  Pierce,  in  the 
midst  of  a  fierce  and  protracted  struggle  over  the 
appropriation  bills,  while  the  Senate  was  without 


340  ABEAHAM    LINCOLN 

Chap.  XIX.  a  quorum  and  impatiently  awaiting  the  reports  of 
a  number  of  conference  committees,  Douglas  seized 
the  opportunity  of  the  lull  to  call  up  his  Nebraska 
bill.  Here  again,  as  in  the  House,  Texas  stub- 
bornly opposed  it.  Houston  undertook  to  talk  it 
to  death  in  a  long  speech ;  Bell  protested  against 
robbing  the  Indians  of  their  guaranteed  rights. 
The  bill  seemed  to  have  no  friend  but  its  author 
when,  perhaps  to  his  surprise.  Senator  D.  R. 
Atchison,  of  Missouri,  threw  himself  into  the 
breach. 

Prefacing  his  remarks  with  the  statement  that 

he  had  formerly  been  opposed  to  the  measure,  he 

continued :    "  I  had  two  objections  to  it.     One  was 

"Globe,"    that  the  Indian  title  in  that  territory  had  not  been 

i853?pau3.  extinguished,  or  at  least  a  very  small  portion  of  it 
had  been.  Another  was  the  Missouri  Compromise, 
or,  as  it  is  commonly  called,  the  Slavery  Restric- 
tion. It  was  my  opinion  at  that  time  —  and  I  am 
not  now  very  clear  on  that  subject  —  that  the  law 
of  Congi-ess,  when  the  State  of  Missouri  was  ad- 
mitted into  the  Union,  excluding  slavery  from  the 
territory  of  Louisiana  north  of  36°  30',  would  be 
enforced  in  that  territory  unless  it  was  specially 
rescinded ;  and  whether  that  law  was  in  accordance 
with  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States  or  not, 
it  would  do  its  work,  and  that  work  would  be  to 
preclude  slaveholders  from  going  into  that  terri- 
tory. But  when  I  came  to  look  into  that  question, 
I  found  that  there  was  no  prospect,  no  hope,  of 
a  repeal  of  the  Missouri  Compromise  excluding 
slavery  from  that  territory.  .  .  I  have  always 
been  of  opinion  that  the  first  great  error  committed 
in  the  political  history  of  this  country  was   the 


THE    REPEAL    OF    THE    MISSOURI    COMPROMISE  341 

Ordinance  of  1787,  rendering  the  North-west  Terri-  chap.  xix. 
tory  free  territory.  The  next  great  error  was  the 
Missouri  Compromise.  But  they  are  both  irre- 
mediable. .  .  We  must  submit  to  them.  I  am  pre- 
pared to  do  it.  It  is  evident  that  the  Mis^iouri 
Compromise  cannot  be  repealed.  So  far  as  that 
question  is  concerned,  we  might  as  well  agree  to 
the  admission  of  this  territory  now  as  next  year, 
or  five  or  ten  years  hence." 

Mr.  Douglas  closed  the  debate,  advocating  the 
passage  of  the  bill  for  general  reasons,  and  by  his 
silence  accepting  Atchison's  conclusions  ;  but  as  "oiobe," 
the  morning  of  the  4th  of  March  was  breaking,  an  ma.p.im. 
unwilling  Senate  laid  the  bill  on  the  table  by  a  vote 
of  twenty-three  to  seventeen,  here,  as  in  the  House, 
the  West  being  for  and  the  South  against  the 
measure.  It  is  not  probable,  however,  that  in  this 
course  the  South  acted  with  any  mental  reservation 
or  sinister  motive.  The  great  breach  of  faith  was 
not  yet  even  meditated.  Only  a  few  hours  after- 
wards, in  a  dignified  and  stately  national  ceremonial, 
in  the  midst  of  foreign  ministers,  judges,  sena- 
tors, and  representatives,  the  new  President  of  the 
United  States  delivered  to  the  people  his  inaugural 
address.  High  and  low  were  alike  intent  to  discern 
the  opening  political  currents  of  the  new  Adminis- 
tration, but  none  touched  or  approached  this  partic- 
ular subject.  The  aspirations  of  "  Young  America" 
were  not  towards  a  conquest  of  the  North,  but  the 
enlargement  of  the  South.  A  freshening  breeze 
filled  the  sails  of  "  annexation "  and  "  manifest 
destiny."  In  bold  words  the  President  said :  "  The 
policy  of  my  Administration  will  not  be  controlled 
by  any  timid  forebodings  of  evil  from  expansion. 


342  ABKAHAM    LINCOLN 

Chap.  XIX.  Indeed,  it  is  not  to  be  disguised  that  our  attitude 
as  a  nation  and  our  position  on  the  globe  render 
the  acquisition  of  certain  possessions  not  within 
our  jurisdiction  eminently  important  for  our 
protection,  if  not  in  the  future  essential  for  the 
preservation  of  the  rights  of  commerce  and  the 
peace  of  the  world."  Reaching  the  slavery  ques- 
tion, he  expressed  unbounded  devotion  to  the 
Union,  and  declared  slavery  recognized  by  the 
Constitution,  and  his  purpose  to  enforce  the  com- 
promise measures  of  1850,  adding,  "  I  fervently  trust 
that  the  question  is  at  rest,  and  that  no  sectional 
or  ambitious  or  fanatical  excitement  may  again 
threaten  the  durability  of  our  institutions,  or  ob- 
scure the  light  of  our  prosperity." 

When  Congress  met  again  in  the  following 
December  (1853),  the  annual  message  of  President 
Pierce  was,  upon  this  subject,  but  an  echo  of  his 
inaugural,  as  his  inaugural  had  been  but  an  echo 
of  the  two  party  platforms  of  1852.  Affirming 
that  the  compromise  measures  of  1850  had  given 
repose  to  the  country,  he  declared,  "  That  this 
repose  is  to  suffer  no  shock  during  my  official 
term,  if  I  have  the  power  to  avert  it,  those  who 
placed  me  here  may  be  assured."  In  this  spirit, 
undoubtedly,  the  Democratic  party  and  the  South 
began  the  session  of  1853-4;  but  unfortunately 
it  was  very  soon  abandoned.  The  people  of  the 
Missom-i  and  Iowa  border  were  becoming  every 
day  more  impatient  to  enter  upon  an  authorized 
occupancy  of  the  new  lands  which  lay  a  day's 
journey  to  the  west.  Handfuls  of  squatters  here 
and  there  had  elected  two  territorial  delegates, 
who  hastened  to  Washington  with  embryo  creden- 


THE    REPEAL    OF    THE    MISSOURI    COMPROMISE  343 

tials.  The  subject  of  organizing  the  West  was  chap.xix. 
again  broached  ;  an  Iowa  Senator  introduced  a 
territorial  bill.  Under  the  ordinary  routine  it  was 
referred  to  the  Committee  on  Territories,  and  on 
the  4th  day  of  January  Douglas  reported  back  his 
second  Nebraska  bill,  still  without  any  repeal  of 
the  Missouri  Compromise.  His  elaborate  report,  senate  Re- 
accompanying  this  second  bill,  shows  that  the  sub-  ^8*1^'''°' 

'  33u.  Con- 

jeet  had  been  most  carefully  examined  in  com-  ^®^^- 
mittee.  The  discussion  was  evidently  exhaustive, 
going  over  the  whole  history,  policy,  and  constitu- 
tionality of  prohibitory  legislation.  Two  or  three 
sentences  are  quite  suflficient  to  present  the  sub- 
stance of  the  long  and  wordy  report.  First,  that 
there  were  differences  and  doubts;  second,  that 
these  had  been  finally  settled  by  the  compromise 
measures  of  1850 ;  and,  therefore,  third,  the  com- 
mittee had  adhered  not  only  to  the  spirit  but  to 
the  very  phraseology  of  that  adjustment,  and 
refused  either  to  affirm  or  repeal  the  Missouri 
Compromise. 

This  was  the  public  and  legislative  agreement 
announced  to  the  country.  Subsequent  revela- 
tions show  the  secret  and  factional  bargain  which 
that  agreement  covered.  Not  only  was  this  terri- 
torial bill  searchingly  considered  in  committee,  but 
repeated  caucuses  were  held  by  the  Democratic 
leaders  to  discuss  the  party  results  likely  to  grow 
out  of  it.  The  Southern  Democrats  maintained 
that  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States  recog- 
nized their  right  and  guaranteed  them  protection 
to  their  slave  property,  if  they  chose  to  carry  it 
into  Federal  Territories.  Douglas  and  other  North- 
ern Democrats  contended  that  slavery  was  subject 


344 


ABEAHAM    LINCOLN 


Chap.  XIX. 


Senator 
Benjaiuin, 
Senate  De- 
bate, May 

8,  I860. 
"  Globe," 

p.  1966. 


Ibid. 


Douglas, 
pamphlet 
In  reply  to 

Judge 
Black,  Oc- 
tober, 1859, 
p.  6. 


"Globe," 

Jan.  16, 1864, 

p.  175. 


to  local  law,  and  that  the  people  of  a  Territory,  like 
those  of  a  State,  could  establish  or  prohibit  it. 
This  radical  difference,  if  carried  into  party  action, 
would  lose  them  the  political  ascendency  they  had 
so  long  maintained,  and  were  then  enjoying.  To 
avert  a  public  rupture  of  the  party,  it  was  agreed 
"  that  the  Territories  should  be  organized  with  a 
delegation  by  Congress  of  all  the  power  of  Con- 
gress in  the  Territories,  and  that  the  extent  of  the 
power  of  Congress  should  be  determined  by  the 
courts."  If  the  courts  should  decide  against  the 
South,  the  Southern  Democrats  would  accept  the 
Northern  theory;  if  the  courts  should  decide  in 
favor  of  the  South,  the  Northern  Democrats  would 
defend  the  Southern  view.  Thus  harmony  would 
be  preserved,  and  party  power  prolonged.  Here 
we  have  the  shadow  of  the  coming  Dred  Scott 
decision  already  projected  into  political  history, 
though  the  speaker  protests  that  "none  of  us  knew 
of  the  existence  of  a  controversy  then  pending  in 
the  Federal  courts  that  would  lead  almost  immedi- 
ately to  the  decision  of  that  question."  This  was 
probably  true ;  for  a  "  peculiar  provision "  was 
expressly  inserted  in  the  committee's  bill,  allowing 
appeals  to  the  Supreme  Court  of  the  United  States 
in  all  questions  involving  title  to  slaves,  without 
reference  to  the  usual  limitations  in  respect  to  the 
value  of  the  property,  thereby  paving  the  way  to 
an  early  adjudication  by  the  Supreme  Court. 

Thus  the  matter  rested  till  the  16th  of  January, 
when  Senator  Dixon,  of  Kentucky,  apparently 
acting  for  himself  alone,  offered  an  amendment  in 
effect  repealing  the  Missouri  Compromise.  Upon 
this  provocation.  Senator  Sumner,  of  Massachusetts, 


THE   BEPEAL    OF    THE   MISSOUEI    COMPKOMISE  345 

the  next  day  offered  another  amendment  affirm-  chap.xix 
ing  that  it  was  not  repealed  by  the  bill.  Comment- 
ing on  these  propositions  two  days  later,  the 
Administration  organ,  the  "  Washington  Union," 
declared  they  were  both  "false  lights,"  to  be  avoided 
by  all  good  Democrats.  By  this  time,  however, 
the  subject  of  "repeal"  had  become  bruited  about 
the  Capitol  corridors,  the  hotels,  and  the  caucus 
rooms  of  Washington,  and  newspaper  correspond- 
ents were  on  the  qui  vive  to  obtain  the  latest  devel- 
opments concerning  the  intrigue.  The  secrets  of 
the  Territorial  Committee  leaked  out,  and  consul- 
tations multiplied.  Could  a  repeal  be  carried? 
Who  would  offer  it  and  lead  it?  What  divisions 
or  schisms  would  it  carry  into  the  ranks  of  the 
Democratic  party,  especially  in  the  pending  contest 
between  the  "  Hards  "  and  "  Softs  "  in  New  York  ? 
What  effect  would  it  have  upon  the  presidential 
election  of  1856  ?  Already  the  "  Union  "  suggested 
that  it  was  whispered  that  Cass  was  willing  to 
propose  and  favor  such  a  "  repeal."  It  was  given 
out  in  the  "  Baltimore  Sun  "  that  Cass  intended  to 
"  separate  the  sheep  from  the  goats."  Both  state- 
ments were  untrue ;  but  they  perhaps  had  their  in- 
tended effect,  to  arouse  the  jealousy  and  eagerness 
of  Douglas.  The  political  air  of  Washington  was 
heavy  with  clouds  and  mutterings,  and  clans  were 
gathering  for  and  against  the  ominous  proposition. 
So  far  as  history  has  been  allowed  a  glimpse  into 
these  secret  communings,  three  principal  person- 
ages were  at  this  time  planning  a  movement  of 
vast  portent.  These  were  Stephen  A.  Douglas, 
chairman  of  the  Senate  Committee  on  Territories ; 
Archibald  Dixon,  Whig  Senator  from  Kentucky; 


346  ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

Chap.  XIX.  and  David  E.  Atchison,  of  Missouri,  then  president 
pro  tempore  of  the  Senate,  and  acting  Vice-President 
of  the  United  States.  " '  For  myself,'  said  the  latter 
in  explaining  the  transaction,  'I  am  entirely  de- 
voted to  the  interest  of  the  South,  and  I  would 
sacrifice  everything  but  my  hope  of  heaven  to 
advance  her  welfare.'  He  thought  the  Missouri 
Compromise  ought  to  be  repealed ;  he  had  pledged 
himself  in  his  public  addresses  to  vote  for  no  terri- 
torial organization  that  would  not  virtually  annul 
it;  and  with  this  feeling  in  his  heart  he  desired  to 
be  the  chairman  of  the  Senate  Committee  on  Ter- 
ritories when  a  bill  was  introduced.  With  this 
object  in  view,  he  had  a  private  interview  with  Mr. 
Douglas,  and  informed  him  of  what  he  desii-ed  — 
the  introduction  of  a  bill  for  Nebraska  like  what 
[sic]  he  had  promised  to  vote  for,  and  that  he 
would  like  to  be  the  chairman  of  the  Committee  on 
Territories  in  order  to  introduce  such  a  measure ; 
and,  if  he  could  get  that  position,  he  would  imme- 
diately resign  as  president  of  the  Senate.  Judge 
Douglas  requested  twenty-four  hours  to  consider 
the  matter,  and  if  at  the  expiration  of  that  time  he 
could  not  introduce  such  a  bill  as  he  (Mr.  Atchison) 
proposed,  he  would  resign  as  chairman  of  the  Terri- 
torial Committee  in  Democratic  caucus,  and  exert 
his  influence  to  get  him  (Atchison)  appointed. 
At  the  expiration  of  the  given  time.  Senator  Doug- 
las signified  his  intention  to  introduce  such  a  bill 
as  had  been  spoken  of."  ^ 

Senator  Dixon  is  no  less  explicit  in  his  descrip- 
tion of  these  political  negotiations.     "  My  amend- 

1  Speech   at   Atchison  City,  September,  1854,  reported  in  the 
"  Parkville  Luminary." 


THE   REPEAL    OF    THE    MISSOURI    COMPROMISE  347 

ment  seemed  to  take  the  Senate  by  surprise,  and  chap.xix. 
no  one  appeared  more  startled  than  Judge  Douglas 
himself.  He  immediately  came  to  my  seat  and 
courteously  remonstrated  against  my  amendment, 
suggesting  that  the  bill  which  he  had  introduced 
was  almost  in  the  words  of  the  territorial  acts  for 
the  organization  of  Utah  and  New  Mexico;  that  they 
being  a  part  of  the  compromise  measures  of  1850 
he  had  hoped  that  I,  a  known  and  zealous  friend  of 
the  wise  and  patriotic  adjustment  which  had  then 
taken  place,  would  not  be  inclined  to  do  any- 
thing to  call  that  adjustment  in  question  or  weaken 
it  before  the  country. 

"I  replied  that  it  was  precisely  because  I  had 
been  and  was  a  firm  and  zealous  friend  of  the  Com- 
promise of  1850  that  I  felt  bound  to  persist  in  the 
movement  which  I  had  originated ;  that  I  was  well 
satisfied  that  the  Missouri  Restriction,  if  not 
expressly  repealed,  would  continue  to  operate  in 
the  territory  to  which  it  had  been  applied,  thus 
negativing  the  great  and  salutary  principle  of  non- 
intervention which  constituted  the  most  prominent 
and  essential  feature  of  the  plan  of  settlement  of 
1850.  We  talked  for  some  time  amicably,  and 
separated.  Some  days  afterwards  Judge  Douglas 
came  to  my  lodgings,  whilst  I  was  confined  by 
physical  indisposition,  and  urged  me  to  get  up  and 
take  a  ride  with  him  in  his  carriage.  I  accepted 
his  invitation,  and  rode  out  with  him.  During  our 
short  excursion  we  talked  on  the  subject  of  my 
proposed  amendment,  and  Judge  Douglas,  to  my 
high  gratification,  proposed  to  me  that  I  should 
allow  him  to  take  charge  of  the  amendment  and 
ingraft  it  on  his  territorial  bill.    I  acceded  to  the 


348  ABEAHAM    LINCOLN 

Chap.  XIX.  proposition  at  once,  whereupon  a  most  interesting 
interchange  occurred  between  us. 

"  On  this  occasion  Judge  Douglas  spoke  to  me 
in  substance  thus :  '  I  have  become  perfectly 
satisfied  that  it  is  my  duty,  as  a  fair-minded 
national  statesman,  to  cooperate  with  you  as  pro- 
posed, in  securing  the  repeal  of  the  Missouri  Com- 
promise restriction.  It  is  due  to  the  South ;  it  is 
due  to  the  Constitution,  heretofore  palpably  in- 
fracted ;  it  is  due  to  that  character  for  consistency 
which  I  have  heretofore  labored  to  maintain.  The 
repeal,  if  we  can  effect  it,  will  produce  much  stir 
and  commotion  in  the  free  States  of  the  Union  for 
a  season.  I  shall  be  assailed  by  demagogues  and 
fanatics  there  without  stint  or  moderation.  Every 
opprobrious  epithet  will  be  applied  to  me.  I  shall 
be  probably  hung  in  effigy  in  many  places.  It  is 
more  than  probable  that  I  may  become  perma- 
nently odious  among  those  whose  friendship  and 
esteem  I  have  heretofore  possessed.  This  proceed- 
ing may  end  my  political  career.  But,  acting 
under  the  sense  of  the  duty  which  animates  me,  I 
am  prepared  to  make  the  sacrifice.     I  will  do  it.' 

"  He  spoke  in  the  most  earnest  and  touching 
manner,  and  I  confess  that  I  was  deeply  affected. 
I  said  to  him  in  reply :  '  Sir,  I  once  recognized  you 
as  a  demagogue,  a  mere  party  manager,  selfish  and 
intriguing.  I  now  find  you  a  warm-hearted  and 
sterling  patriot.  Go  forward  in  the  pathway  of 
duty  as  you  propose,  and  though  aU  the  world 
desert  you,  I  never  will.' "  ^ 

Such  is  the  circumstantial  record  of  this  remark- 

1  Archibald  Dixon  to  H.  S.  Foote,  October  1,  1858.     "Louisville 
Democrat"  of  October  3,  1858. 


THE    EEPEAL    OF    THE    MISSOURI    COMPROMISE  349 

able  political  transaction  left  by  two  prominent  chap.xix. 
and  principal  instigators,  and  never  denied  nor 
repudiated  by  the  third.  Gradually,  as  the  plot 
was  developed,  the  agreement  embraced  the  lead- 
ing elements  of  the  Democratic  party  in  Congress, 
reenforced  by  a  majority  of  the  Whig  leaders  from 
the  slave  States.  A  day  or  two  before  the  final 
introduction  of  the  repeal,  Douglas  and  others  held 
an  interview  with  President  Pierce,^  and  obtained 
from  him  in  writing  an  agreement  to  adopt  the 
movement  as  an  Administration  measure.  Fortified 
with  this  important  adhesion,  Douglas  took  the  fatal 
plunge,  and  on  January  23  introduced  his  third 
Nebraska  bill,  organizing  two  territories  instead 
of  one,  and  declaring  the  Missouri  Compromise 
"  inoperative."  But  the  amendment  —  monstrous 
Caliban  of  legislation  as  it  was — needed  to  be  still 

1  Jefferson  Davis,  who  was  a  with  them  to  the  Executive  Man- 
member  of  President  Pierce's  sion,  and,  leaving  them  in  the 
Cabinet  (Secretary  of  War),  thus  reception-room,  sought  the  Presi- 
relates  the  incident:  "On  Sun-  dent  in  his  private  apartments, 
day  morning,  the  22d  of  January,  and  explained  to  him  the  occa- 
1854,  gentlemen  of  each  com-  sion  of  the  visit.  He  thei-eupon 
mittee  [House  and  Senate  Com-  met  the  gentlemen,  patiently 
mittees  on  Territories]  called  at  listened  to  the  reading  of  the  bill 
my  house,  and  Mr.  Douglas,  and  their  explanations  of  it,  de- 
chairman  of  the  Senate  Commit-  cided  that  it  rested  upon  sound 
tee,  fully  explained  the  proposed  constitutional  principles,  and  rec- 
bill,  and  stated  their  purpose  to  ognized  in  it  only  a  return  to 
be,  through  my  aid,  to  obtain  an  that  rule  which  had  been  in- 
interview  on  that  day  with  the  fringed  by  the  Compromise  of 
President,  to  ascertain  whether  1820,  and  the  restoration  of 
the  bill  would  meet  his  approba-  which  had  been  foreshadowed  by 
tion.  The  President  was  known  the  legislation  of  1850.  This 
to  be  rigidly  opposed  to  the  re-  bill  was  not,  therefore,  as  has 
ception  of  visits  on  Sunday  for  been  improperly  asserted,  a 
the  discussion  of  any  political  measure  inspired  by  Mr.  Pierce 
subject;  but  in  this  case  it  was  or  any  of  his  Cabinet." — Davis, 
urged  as  necessary,  in  order  to  "Rise  and  Fall  of  the  Confed- 
enable  the  committee  to  make  erate  Government,"  Vol.  I.,  pi 
their  report  the  next  day.   I  went  28. 


350  ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

Chap.  XIX.  further  licked  into  shape  to  satisfy  the  designs  of 
the  South  and  appease  the  alarmed  conscience  of 
the  North.  Two  weeks  later,  after  the  first  out- 
burst of  debate,  the  following  phraseology  was 
"Globe,"  substituted:  "Which  being  inconsistent  with  the 
1854,  p.  421.  principle  of  non-intervention  by  Congress  with 
slavery  in  the  States  and  Territories,  as  recog- 
nized by  the  legislation  of  1850  (commonly  called 
the  Compromise  measures),  is  hereby  declared  in- 
operative and  void;  it  being  the  true  intent  and 
meaning  of  this  act  not  to  legislate  slavery  into  any 
Territory  or  State,  nor  to  exclude  it  therefrom,  but 
to  leave  the  people  thereof  perfectly  free  to  form 
and  regulate  their  domestic  institutions  in  their 
own  way,  subject  only  to  the  Constitution "  —  a 
change  which  Benton  truthfully  characterized  as 
"  a  stump  speech  injected  into  the  belly  of  the 
Nebraska  bill."  ^ 

The  storm  of  agitation  which  this  measure 
aroused  dwarfed  all  former  ones  in  depth  and  in- 
tensity. The  South  was  nearly  united  in  its  behalf, 
the  North  sadly  divided  in  opposition.  Against 
protest  and  appeal,  under  legislative  whip  and 
spur,  with  the  tempting  smiles  and  patronage  of 
the  Administration,  after  nearly  a  four  months' 
parliamentary  struggle,   the    plighted  faith  of  a 

1  We  have  the  authority  of  ex-  withdraw  or  withhold  from  him 
Vice-President  Hannibal  Hamlin  a  full  and  undivided  Administra- 
forstating  that  Mr.  Douglas  (who  tion  support,  and  told  Mr.  Ham- 
was  on  specially  intimate  terms  lin  that  he  intended  to  get  from 
with  him)  told  him  that  the  Ian-  him  something  in  black  and  white 
guage  of  the  final  amendment  to  which  would  hold  him.  A  day  or 
the  Kansas-Nebraska  bill  repeal-  two  afterwards  Douglas,  in  a  con- 
ing the  Missouri  Compromise  was  fidential  conversation,  showed 
written  by  President  Franklin  Mr.  Hamlin  the  draft  of  the 
Pierce.  Douglas  was  apprehen-  amendment  in  Mr.  Pierce's  own 
sive   that   the   President  would  handwriting. 


THE    REPEAL    OF    THE    MISSOURI    COMPROMISE  351 

generation  was  violated,  and  the  repealing  act  chap.xix. 
passed  —  mainly  by  the  great  influence  and  ex- 
ample of  Douglas,  who  had  only  five  years  before 
so  fittingly  described  the  Missouri  Compromise  as 
being  "  akin  to  the  Constitution,"  and  "  canonized 
in  the  hearts  of  the  American  people  as  a  sacred 
thing  which  no  ruthless  hand  would  ever  be  reck- 
less enough  to  disturb." 


CHAPTER   XX 


THE    DRIFT    OF    POLITICS 


Chap.  XX.  ^  I  ^HE  repeal  of  the  Missom-i  Compromise  made 
i  the  slavery  question  paramount  in  every  State 
of  the  Union.  The  boasted  finality  was  a  broken 
reed;  the  life-boat  of  compromise  a  hopeless 
wreck.  If  the  agreement  of  a  generation  could  be 
thus  annulled  in  a  breath,  was  there  any  safety 
even  in  the  Constitution  itself  ?  This  feeling  com- 
municated itself  to  the  Northern  States  at  the  very 
first  note  of  warning,  and  every  man's  party  fealty 
was  at  once  decided  by  his  toleration  of  or  opposi- 
tion to  slavery.  While  the  fate  of  the  Nebraska 
bill  hung  in  a  doubtful  balance  in  the  House,  the 
feeling  found  expression  in  letters,  speeches,  meet- 
ings, petitions,  and  remonstrances.  Men  were  for 
or  against  the  bill  —  every  other  political  subject 
was  left  in  abeyance.  The  measure  once  passed, 
and  the  Compromise  repealed,  the  first  natural  im- 
pulse was  to  combine,  organize,  and  agitate  for  its 
restoration.  This  was  the  ready-made,  common 
ground  of  cooperation. 

It  is  probable  that  this  merely  defensive  energy 
would  have  been  overcome  and  dissipated,  had  it 
not  at  this  juncture  been  inspirited  and  led  by  the 
faction  known  as  the  Free-soil  party  of  the  country, 

352 


THE    DRIFT    OF    POLITICS  353 

composed  mainly  of  men  of  independent  anti-  chap.xx. 
slavery  views,  who  had  during  four  presidential 
campaigns  been  organized  as  a  distinct  political 
body,  with  no  near  hope  of  success,  but  animated 
mainly  by  the  desire  to  give  expression  to  their 
deep  personal  convictions.  If  there  were  dema- 
gogues here  and  there  among  them,  seeking  merely 
to  create  a  balance  of  power  for  bargain  and  sale, 
they  were  unimportant  in  number,  and  only  of  local 
influence,  and  soon  became  deserters.  There  was 
no  mistaking  the  earnestness  of  the  body  of  this 
faction.  A  few  fanatical  men,  who  had  made  it  the 
vehicle  of  violent  expressions,  had  kept  it  under 
the  ban  of  popular  prejudice.  It  had  long  been 
held  up  to  public  odium  as  a  revolutionary  band 
of  "  abolitionists."  Most  of  the  abolitionists  were 
doubtless  in  this  party,  but  the  party  was  not  all 
composed  of  abolitionists.  Despite  objurgation  and 
contempt,  it  had  become  since  1840  a  constant  and 
growing  factor  in  politics.  It  had  operated  as  a 
negative  balance  of  power  in  the  last  three  presi- 
dential elections,  causing  by  its  diversion  of  votes, 
and  more  especially  by  its  relaxing  influence  upon 
parties,  the  success  of  the  Democratic  candidate, 
James  K.  Polk,  in  1844,  the  Whig  candidate.  Gen- 
eral Taylor,  in  1848,  and  the  Democratic  nominee, 
Franklin  Pierce,  in  1852. 

This  small  party  of  antislavery  veterans,  over 
158,000  voters  in  the  aggregate,  and  distributed  in 
detachments  of  from  3000  to  30,000  in  twelve  of 
the  free  States,  now  came  to  the  front,  and  with  its 
newspapers  and  speakers  trained  in  the  discussion 
of  the  subject,  and  its  committees  and  affiliations 
already  in  action  and  correspondence,  bore  the 
Vol.  I.—  23 


1D5     Longitude 


HISTORICAL  MA 
OFTHE 

UNITED  STATES 
IN  1854 

SHOWINGTHEVARlOUSACCESSlONSOrTERRlTORt  ETC 

SCALe  OF  MILCS 

TheBoundaiyhetwf^n  the  UmtedStatts  andMexico 
NOTE.  The  ntimber  under  rhe  name  ofa.  State  previous  ttt  18^3  ^  fSidis  indica  ted  thus  *•  ■  ♦  ♦ 
indicates  tftc^ntc  nftte  admission  mto  rhe  Union      T,a  —  "'"  '       ~  „        '    ,"-"      .    j J- 


354 


866 


356  ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

Chap.  XX.  brunt  of  the  fight  against  the  repeal.  Hitherto  its 
aims  had  appeared  Utopian,  and  its  resolves  had 
been  denunciatory  and  exasperating.  Now,  com- 
bining wisdom  with  opportunity,  it  became  con- 
ciliatory, and,  abating  something  of  its  abstractions, 
made  itself  the  exponent  of  a  demand  for  a  present 
and  practical  reform  —  a  simple  return  to  the  an- 
cient faith  and  landmarks.  It  labored  specially  to 
bring  about  the  dissolution  of  the  old  party  organi- 
zations and  the  formation  of  a  new  one,  based  upon 
the  general  policy  of  resisting  the  extension  of 
slavery.  Since,  however,  the  repeal  had  shaken 
but  not  obliterated  old  party  lines,  this  effort  suc- 
ceeded only  in  favorable  localities. 

For  the  present,  party  disintegration  was  slow ; 
men  were  reluctant  to  abandon  their  old-time 
principles  and  associations.  The  united  efforts  of 
Douglas  and  the  Administration  held  the  body  of 
the  Northern  Democrats  to  his  fatal  policy,  though 
protests  and  defections  became  alarmingly  frequent. 
On  the  other  hand,  the  great  mass  of  Northern 
Whigs  promptly  opposed  the  repeal,  and  formed 
the  bulk  of  the  opposition,  nevertheless  losing  per- 
haps as  many  pro-slavery  Whigs  as  they  gained 
antislavery  Democrats.  The  real  and  effective 
gain,  therefore,  was  the  more  or  less  thorough  alli- 
ance of  the  Whig  party  and  the  Free-soil  party  of 
the  Northern  States :  wherever  that  was  successful 
it  gave  immediate  and  available  majorities  to  the 
opposition,  which  made  their  influence  felt  even  in 
the  very  opening  of  the  popular  contest  following 
the  Congressional  repeal. 

It  happened  that  this  was  a  year  for  electing 
Congressmen.    The  Nebraska  bill  did  not  pass  till 


THE    DRIFT    OF    POLITICS  357 

the  end  of  May,  and  the  political  excitement  was  chap,  xx, 
at  once  transferred  from  Washington  to  every  dis- 
trict of  the  whole  country.  It  may  be  said  with 
truth  that  the  year  1854  formed  one  continuous 
and  solid  political  campaign  from  January  to 
November,  rising  in  interest  and  earnestness  from 
first  to  last,  and  engaging  in  the  discussion  more 
fully  than  had  ever  occurred  in  previous  Ameri- 
can history  all  the  constituent  elements  of  our 
population. 

In  the  Southern  States  the  great  majority  of 
people  welcomed,  supported,  and  defended  the 
repeal  of  the  Missouri  Compromise,  it  being  con- 
sonant with  their  pro-slavery  feelings,  and  appar- 
ently favorable  to  their  pro-slavery  interests.  The 
Democratic  party  in  the  South,  controlling  a 
majority  of  slave  States,  was  of  course  a  unit  in 
its  favor.  The  Whig  party,  however,  having  car- 
ried two  slave  States  for  Scott  in  1852,  and  holding 
a  strong  minority  in  the  remainder,  was  not  so 
unanimous.  Seven  Southern  Eepresentatives  and 
two  Southern  Senators  had  voted  against  the 
Nebraska  bill,  and  many  individual  voters  con- 
demned it  as  an  act  of  bad  faith  —  as  the  aban- 
donment of  the  accepted  "finality,"  and  as  the 
provocation  of  a  dangerous  antislavery  reaction. 
But  public  opinion  in  that  part  of  the  Union  was 
fearfully  tyrannical  and  intolerant ;  and  opposition 
dared  only  to  manifest  itself  to  Democratic  party 
organization  —  not  to  these  Democratic  party 
measures.  The  Whigs  of  the  South  were  there- 
fore driven  precipitately  to  division.  Those  of 
extreme  pro-slavery  views,  like  Dixon,  of  Ken- 
tucky,—  who,  when  he  introduced  his  amendment, 


358  ABEAHAM    LINCOLN 

CHAP.  XX.  declared,  "Upon  the  question  of  slavery  I  know  no 
Whiggery  and  no  Democracy," — went  boldly  and 
at  once  over  into  the  Democratic  camp,  while 
those  who  retained  their  traditional  party  name 
and  flag  were  sundered  from  their  ancient  allies  in 
the  Northern  States  by  the  impossibility  of  taking 
up  the  latter's  antislavery  war-cry. 

At  this  juncture  the  political  situation  was 
fui'ther  compHcated  by  the  sudden  rise  of  an 
additional  factor  in  politics,  the  American  party, 
popularly  called  the  "  Know-Nothings."  Essen- 
tially, it  was  a  revival  of  the  extinct  "  Native- 
American"  faction,  based  upon  a  jealousy  of  and 
discrimination  against  foreign-born  voters,  desir- 
ing an  extension  of  their  period  of  naturalization, 
and  their  exclusion  from  office ;  also  based  upon  a 
certain  hostility  to  the  Roman  Catholic  religion.  It 
had  been  reorganized  as  a  secret  order  in  the  year 
1853;  and  seizing  upon  the  political  disappoint- 
ments following  General  Scott's  overwhelming  de- 
feat for  the  presidency  in  1852,  and  profiting  by 
the  disintegi'ation  caused  by  the  Nebraska  bill, 
it  rapidly  gained  recruits  both  North  and  South. 
Operating  in  entire  secrecy,  the  country  was  star- 
tled by  the  sudden  appearance  in  one  locality  after 
another,  on  election  day,  of  a  potent  and  unsus- 
pected political  power,  which  in  many  instances 
pushed  both  the  old  organizations  not  only  to  dis- 
astrous but  even  to  ridiculous  defeat.  Both  North 
and  South  its  forces  were  recruited  mainly  from  the 
Whig  party,  though  malcontents  from  all  quarters 
rushed  to  gi'oup  themselves  upon  its  narrow  plat- 
form, and  to  participate  in  the  exciting  but  delusive 
triumphs  of  its  temporary  and  local  ascendency. 


THE    DKIFT    OF    POLITICS  359 

When,  in  the  opening  of  the  anti-Nebraska  con-  chap.  xx. 
test,  the  Free-soil  leaders  undertook  the  formation 
of  a  new  party  to  supersede  the  old,  they  had, 
because  of  their  generally  democratic  antecedents, 
with  great  unanimity  proposed  that  it  be  called  the 
"  Republican  "  party,  thus  reviving  the  distinctive 
appellation  by  which  the  followers  of  Jefferson 
were  known  in  the  early  days  of  the  republic. 
Considering  the  fact  that  Jefferson  had  originated 
the  policy  of  slavery  restriction  in  his  draft  of  the 
ordinance  of  1784,  the  name  became  singularly 
appropriate,  and  wherever  the  Free-soilers  suc- 
ceeded in  forming  a  coalition  it  was  adopted  with- 
out question.  But  the  refusal  of  the  Whigs  in 
many  States  to  surrender  their  name  and  organiza- 
tion, and  more  especially  the  abrupt  appearance  of 
the  Know-Nothings  on  the  field  of  parties,  retarded 
the  general  coalition  between  the  Whigs  and  the 
Free-soilers  which  so  many  influences  favored. 
As  it  turned  out,  a  great  variety  of  party  names 
were  retained  or  adopted  in  the  Congressional  and 
State  campaigns  of  1854,  the  designation  of  "  anti- 
Nebraska"  being  perhaps  the  most  common,  and 
certainly  for  the  moment  the  most  serviceable, 
since  denunciation  of  the  Nebraska  bill  was  the 
one  all-pervading  bond  of  sympathy  and  agreement 
among  men  who  differed  very  widely  on  almost  all 
other  political  topics.  This  affiliation,  however, 
was  confined  exclusively  to  the  free  States.  In  the 
slave  States,  the  opposition  to  the  Administration 
dared  not  raise  the  anti-Nebraska  banner,  nor 
could  it  have  found  followers ;  and  it  was  not  only 
inclined  but  forced  to  make  its  battle  either  under 
the  old  name  of  Whigs,  or,  as  became  more  pop- 


360  ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

Chap.  XX.  ular,  under  the  new  appellation  of  "  Americans," 
which  grew  into  a  more  dignified  synonym  for 
Know-Nothings. 

Thus  confronted,  the  Nebraska  and  anti-Ne- 
braska factions,  or,  more  philosophically  speaking, 
the  pro-slavery  and  antislavery  sentiment  of  the 
several  American  States,  battled  for  political  su- 
premacy with  a  zeal  and  determination  only  mani- 
fested on  occasions  of  deep  and  vital  concern  to  the 
welfare  of  the  republic.  However  languidly  certain 
elements  of  American  society  may  perform  what 
they  deem  the  drudgery  of  politics,  they  do  not 
shrink  from  it  when  they  hear  warning  of  real 
danger.  The  alarm  of  the  nation  on  the  repeal  of 
the  Missouri  Compromise  was  serious  and  startling. 
All  ranks  and  occupations  therefore  joined  with  a 
new  energy  in  the  contest  it  provoked.  Particu- 
larly was  the  religious  sentiment  of  the  North 
profoundly  moved  by  the  moral  question  involved. 
Perhaps  for  the  first  time  in  our  modern  politics, 
the  pulpit  vied  with  the  press,  and  the  Church  with 
the  campaign  club,  in  the  work  of  debate  and  prop- 
agandism. 

The  very  inception  of  the  struggle  had  provoked 
bitter  words.  Before  the  third  Nebraska  bill  had 
yet  been  introduced  into  the  Senate,  the  then  lit- 
tle band  of  "  Free-Soilers  "  in  Congi'ess  —  Chase, 
Sumner,  Giddings,  and  three  others  —  had  issued  a 
newspaper  address  calling  the  repeal  "  a  gross  vio- 
lation of  a  sacred  pledge " ;  "a  criminal  betrayal  of 
precious  rights  " ;  "  an  atrocious  plot,"  "  designed 
to  cover  up  from  public  reprehension  meditated 
bad  faith,"  etc.  Douglas,  seizing  only  too  gladly 
the  pretext  to  use  denunciation  instead  of  argu- 


THE    DRIFT    OP   POLITICS  361 

ment,  replied  in  his  opening  speech,  in  turn  stig-  chap.  xx. 
matizing  them  as  "abolition  confederates"  "as- 
sembled in  secret  conclave "  "on  the  holy  Sabbath 
while  other  Senators  were  engaged  in  divine  wor- 
ship"—  "plotting,"  "in  the  name  of  the  holy 
religion  "  ;  "  perverting,"  and  "  calumniating  the 
committee  " ;  "  appealing  with  a  smiling  face  to  his 
courtesy  to  get  time  to  circulate  their  document 
before  its  infamy  could  be  exposed,"  etc. 

The  key-notes  of  the  discussion  thus  given  were 
well  sustained  on  both  sides,  and  crimination  and 
recrimination  increased  with  the  heat  and  intensity 
of  the  campaign.  The  grac'.ual  disruption  of  par- 
ties, and  the  new  and  radical  attitudes  assumed  by 
men  of  independent  thought,  gave  ample  occasion 
to  indulge  in  such  epithets  as  "  apostates,"  "  rene- 
gades," and  "  traitors."  Unusual  acrimony  gi-ew 
out  of  the  zeal  of  the  Church  and  its  ministers. 
The  clergymen  of  the  Northern  States  not  only 
spoke  against  the  repeal  from  their  pulpits,  but 
forwarded  energetic  petitions  against  it  to  Con- 
gress, 3050  clergymen  of  New  England  of  differ- 
ent denominations  joining  their  signatures  in  "oiobe," 
one  protest.  "  We  protest  against  it,"  they  said,  issi,  p.  617. 
"as  a  great  moral  wrong,  as  a  breach  of  faith 
eminently  unjust  to  the  moral  principles  of  the 
community,  and  subversive  of  all  confidence  in 
national  engagements ;  as  a  measure  full  of  danger 
to  the  peace  and  even  the  existence  of  our  beloved 
Union,  and  exposing  us  to  the  righteous  judgment 
of  the  Almighty."  In  return,  Douglas  made  a 
most  virulent  onslaught  on  their  political  action. 
"  Here  we  find,"  he  retorted,  "  that  a  large  body  of  ibid.,  p.  eis. 
preachers,  perhaps   three  thousand,  following  the 


362  ABEAHAM    LINCOLN 

Chap.  XX.  lead  of  a  ciiTular  which  was  issued  by  the  abolition 
confederates  in  this  body,  calculated  to  deceive  and 
mislead  the  public,  have  here  come  forward  with 
an  atrocious  falsehood,  and  an  atrocious  calumny 
against  this  Senate,  desecrated  the  pulpit,  and 
prostituted  the  sacred  desk  to  the  miserable  and 
corrupting  influence  of  party  politics."  All  his 
newspapers  and  partisans  throughout  the  countiy 
caught  the  style  and  spirit  of  his  warfare,  and 
boldly  denied  the  moral  right  of  the  clergy  to  take 
part  in  politics  otherwise  than  by  a  silent  vote. 
But  they,  on  the  other  hand,  persisted  all  the  more 
earnestly  in  justifjing  their  interference  in  moral 
questions  wherever  they  appeared,  and  were  clearly 
sustained  by  the  public  opinion  of  the  North. 

Though  the  repeal  was  forced  through  Congress 
under  party  pressure,  and  by  the  sheer  weight 
of  a  large  Democratic  majority  in  both  branches, 
it  met  from  the  first  a  decided  and  unmistakable 
popular  condemnation  in  the  free  States.  While 
the  measure  was  yet  under  discussion  in  the  House 
in  March,  New  Hampshire  led  off  by  an  election 
completely  obliterating  the  eighty-nine  Democratic 
majority  in  her  Legislature.  Connecticut  followed 
in  her  footsteps  early  in  April.  Long  before  No- 
vember it  was  evident  that  the  political  revolution 
among  the  people  of  the  North  was  thorough,  and 
that  election  day  was  anxiously  awaited  merely  to 
record  the  popular  verdict  already  decided. 

The  influence  of  this  result  upon  parties,  old  and 
new,  is  perhaps  best  illustrated  in  the  organization 
of  the  Thirty-fourth  Congress,  chosen  at  these 
elections  during  the  year  1854,  which  witnessed  the 
repeal  of  the  Missomi  Compromise.      Each   Con- 


THE    DEIFT    OF    POLITICS  363 

gress,  in  ordinary  course,  meets  for  the  first  time  chap.  xx. 
about  one  year  after  its  members  are  elected  by  the 
people,  and  the  influence  of  politics  during  the 
interim  needs  always  to  be  taken  into  account. 
In  this  particular  instance  this  effect  had,  if  any- 
thing, been  slightly  reactionary,  and  the  great  con- 
test for  the  Speakership  during  the  winter  of 
1855-6  may  therefore  be  taken  as  a  fair  manifesta- 
tion of  the  spirit  of  politics  in  1854. 

The  strength  of  the  preceding  House  of  Repre- 
sentatives, which  met  in  December,  1853,  had  been : 
Whigs,  71;  Free-soilers,  4;  Democrats,  159 — a 
clear  Democratic  majority  of  84.  In  the  new  Con- 
gress there  were  in  the  House,  as  nearly  as  the 
classification  could  be  made,  about  108  anti-Ne- 
braska members,  nearly  40  Know-Nothings,  and 
about  75  Democrats ;  the  remaining  members  were 
undecided.  The  proud  Democratic  majority  of 
the  Pierce  election  was  annihilated. 

But  as  yet  the  new  party  was  merely  inchoate, 
its  elements  distrustful,  jealous,  and  discordant; 
the  feuds  and  battles  of  a  quarter  of  a  century 
were  not  easily  forgotten  or  buried.  The  Demo- 
cratic members,  boldly  nominating  Mr.  Richard- 
son, the  House  leader  on  the  Nebraska  bill,  as  their 
candidate  for  Speaker,  made  a  long  and  deter- 
mined push  for  success.  But  his  highest  range  of 
votes  was  about  74  to  76 ;  while  through  121  ballot- 
ings,  continuing  from  December  3  to  January  23, 
the  opposition  remained  divided,  Mr.  Banks,  the 
anti-Nebraska  favorite,  running  at  one  time  up  to 
106 — within  seven  votes  of  an  election.  At  this 
point,  Richardson,  finding  it  a  hopeless  struggle, 
withdrew  his  name  as  a  candidate,  and  the  Demo- 


364  ABKAHAM    LINCOLN 

CHAP.  XX.  eratic  strength  was  transferred  to  another,  but 
with  no  better  prospects.  Finally,  seeing  no  chance 
of  otherwise  terminating  the  contest,  the  House 
yielded  to  the  inevitable  domination  of  the  slavery 
question,  and  resolved,  on  February  2,  by  a  vote 
of  113  to  104,  to  elect  under  the  plurality  rule  after 
the  next  three  ballotings.  Under  this  rule,  not- 
withstanding the  most  strenuous  efforts  to  rescind 
it,  Nathaniel  P.  Banks,  of  Massachusetts,  was 
chosen  Speaker  by  103  votes,  against  100  votes  for 
William  Aiken,  of  South  Carolina,  with  thirty 
scattering.  The  "  ruthless  "  repeal  of  the  Missouri 
Compromise  had  effectually  broken  the  legislative 
power  of  the  Democratic  party. 


CHAPTER    XXI 


LINCOLN    AND    TRUMBULL 


TO  follow  closely  the  chain  of  events,  growing  chap.xxi 
out  of  the  repeal  of  the  Missouri  Compromise       i854. 
at  Douglas's  instigation,  we   must   now  examine 
its  effect  upon  the  political  fortunes  of  that  power- 
ful leader  in  his  own  State. 

The  extreme  length  of  Illinois  from  north  to 
south  is  385  miles;  in  geographical  situation  it 
extends  from  the  latitude  of  Massachusetts  and 
New  York  to  that  of  Virginia  and  Kentucky.  The 
great  westward  stream  of  emigration  in  the  United 
States  had  generally  followed  the  parallels  of  lati- 
tude. The  pioneers  planted  their  new  homes  as 
nearly  as  might  be  in  a  climate  like  the  one  they 
had  left.  In  process  of  time,  therefore,  northern 
Illinois  became  peopled  with  settlers  from  Northern 
or  free  States,  bringing  their  antislavery  traditions 
and  feelings;  southern  Illinois,  with  those  from 
Southern  or  slave  States,  who  were  as  naturally 
pro-slavery.  The  Virginians  and  Kentuckians 
readily  became  converts  to  the  thrift  and  order  of 
free  society ;  but  as  a  class  they  never  gave  up  or 
conquered  their  intense  hatred  of  antislavery  con- 
victions based  on  merely  moral  grounds,  which 
they  indiscriminately  stigmatized  as   "abolition- 

366 


366  ABKAHAM    LINCOLN 

Chap.  XXI.  ism."  Impelled  by  this  hatred  the  lawless  element 
of  the  community  was  often  guilty  of  persecution 
and  violence  in  minor  forms,  and  in  1837,  as  al- 
ready related,  it  prompted  the  murder  of  Love  joy 
in  the  city  of  Alton  by  a  mob,  for  persisting  in  his 
right  to  publish  his  antislavery  opinions.  This  was 
its  gravest  crime.  But  a  narrow  spirit  of  intoler- 
ance extending  even  down  to  the  rebellion  kept  on 
the  statute  books  a  series  of  acts  prohibiting  the 
settlement  of  free  blacks  in  the  State. 

It  was  upon  this  field  of  radically  diverse  sen- 
timent that  in  the  year  1854  Douglas's  sudden 
project  of  repeal  fell  like  a  thunderbolt  out  of  a 
clear  sky.  A  Democratic  Grovernor  had  been  chosen 
two  years  before ;  a  Democratic  Legislature,  called 
together  to  consider  merely  local  and  economic 
questions,  was  sitting  in  extra  session  at  Spring- 
field. There  was  doubt  and  consternation  over 
the  new  issue.  The  Governor  and  other  prudent 
partisans  avoided  a  public  committal.  But  the 
silence  could  not  be  long  maintained.  Douglas 
was  a  despotic  party  leader,  and  President  Pierce 
had  made  the  Nebraska  bill  an  Administration 
question.  Above  all,  in  Illinois,  as  elsewhere,  the 
people  at  once  took  up  the  discussion,  and  reluctant 
politicians  were  compelled  to  avow  themselves. 
The  Nebraska  bill  with  its  repealing  clause  had 
been  before  the  country  some  three  weeks  and  was 
yet  pending  in  Congress  when  a  member  of  the 
Illinois  Legislature  introduced  resolutions  indors- 
ing it.  Three  Democratic  State  Senators,  two  from 
northern  and  one  from  central  Illinois,  had  the 
courage  to  rise  and  oppose  the  resolutions  in  vigor- 
ous and  starthng  speeches.    They  were  N.  B.  Judd, 


LINCOLN    AND    TRUMBULL  367 

of  Chicago,  B.  C.  Cook,  of  La  Salle,  and  John  M.  chap.xxi: 
Palmer,  of  Macoupin.  This  was  an  unusual  party- 
phenomenon  and  had  its  share  in  hastening  the 
general  agitation  throughout  the  State.  Only  two 
or  three  other  members  took  part  in  the  discussion ; 
the  Democrats  avoided  the  issue ;  the  Whigs  hoped 
to  profit  by  the  dissension.  There  was  the  usual 
rush  of  amendments  and  of  parliamentary  strat- 
egy, and  the  indorsing  resolutions  which  finally 
passed  in  both  Houses  in  ambiguous  language  and 
by  a  diminished  vote  were  shorn  of  much  of  their 
political  significance. 

Party  organization  was  strong  in  Illinois,  and  for 
the  greater  part,  as  the  popular  discussion  pro- 
ceeded, the  Democrats  sustained  and  the  Whigs 
opposed  the  new  measure.  In  the  northern  coun- 
ties, where  the  antislavery  sentiment  was  general, 
there  were  a  few  successful  efforts  to  disband  the 
old  parties  and  create  a  combined  opposition  under 
the  new  name  of  Republicans.  This,  it  was  soon 
apparent,  would  make  serious  inroads  on  the  exist- 
ing Democratic  majority.  But  an  alarming  counter- 
movement  in  the  central  counties,  which  formed 
the  Whig  stronghold,  soon  began  to  show  itself. 
Douglas's  violent  denunciation  of  "abolitionists" 
and  "  abolitionism  "  appealed  with  singular  power 
to  Whigs  from  slave  States.  The  party  was  with- 
out a  national  leader ;  Clay  had  died  two  years 
before,  and  Douglas  made  skillful  quotations  from 
the  great  statesman's  speeches  to  bolster  up  his 
new  propagandism.  In  Congress  only  a  little 
handful  of  Southern  Whigs  opposed  the  repeal, 
and  even  these  did  not  dare  place  their  opposi- 
tion on  antislavery  grounds.    And  especially  the 


368  ABEAHAM    LINCOLN 

Chap.  XXI.  familiar  voice  and  example  of  the  neighboring 
Missouri  Whigs  were  given  unhesitatingly  to  the 
support  of  the  Douglas  scheme.  Under  these  com- 
bined influences  one  or  two  erratic  but  rather 
prominent  Whigs  in  central  Illinois  declared  their 
adherence  to  Nebraskaism,  and  raised  the  hope 
that  the  Democrats  would  regain  in  the  center  and 
south  all  they  might  lose  in  the  northern  half  of 
the  State. 

One  additional  circumstance  had  its  effect  on 
public  opinion.  As  has  been  stated,  in  the  opposi- 
tion to  Douglas's  repeal  the  few  avowed  abolitionists 
and  the  many  pronounced  Free-soilers,  displaying 
unwonted  activity,  came  suddenly  into  the  fore- 
ground to  rouse  and  organize  public  opinion,  mak- 
ing it  seem  for  the  moment  that  they  had  really 
assumed  leadership  and  control  in  politics.  This 
class  of  men  had  long  been  held  up  to  public  odium. 
Some  of  them  had,  indeed,  on  previous  occasions 
used  intemperate  and  offensive  language ;  but  more 
generally  they  were  denounced  upon  a  gross  mis- 
representation of  their  utterance  and  purpose.  It 
so  happened  that  they  were  mostly  of  Democratic 
antecedents,  which  gave  them  great  influence  among 
antislavery  Democrats,  but  made  their  advice  and 
arguments  exceedingly  distasteful  in  strong  Whig 
counties  and  communities.  The  fact  that  they  now 
became  more  prudent,  conciliatory,  and  practical  in 
their  speeches  and  platforms  did  not  immediately 
remove  existing  prejudices  against  them.  A  few 
of  these  appeared  in  Illinois.  Cassius  M.  Clay  pub- 
lished a  letter  in  which  he  advocated  the  fusion  of 
anti-Nebraska  voters  upon  "  Benton,  Seward,  Hale, 
or  any  other  good  citizen,"  and  afterwards  made  a 


LYMAN    TRUMBULL. 


I'"- 


Of  r^i? 


LINCOLN    AND    TRUMBULL  369 

series  of  speeches  in  Illinois.  When  he  came  to  chap.xxi. 
Springfield,  the  Democratic  officers  in  charge  re- 
fused him  the  use  of  the  rotunda  of  the  State 
House, 'a  circumstance,  however,  which  only  served 
to  draw  him  a  larger  audience  in  a  neighboring 
grove.  Later  in  the  summer  Joshua  R.  Giddings 
and  Salmon  P.  Chase,  of  Ohio,  made  a  political 
tour  through  the  State,  and  at  Springfield  the 
future  Secretary  and  Chief-Justice  addressed  an 
unsympathetic  audience  of  a  few  hundreds  in  the 
dingy  little  court-house,  almost  unheralded,  save 
by  the  epithets  of  the  Democratic  newspapers.  A 
few  local  speakers  of  this  class,  of  superior  address 
and  force,  now  also  began  to  signalize  themselves 
by  a  new-born  zeal  and  an  attractive  eloquence. 
Conspicuous  among  these  was  Owen  Lovejoy,  of 
northern  Illinois,  brother  of  the  man  who,  for 
opinion's  sake,  had  been  murdered  at  Alton. 

While  thus  in  the  northern  half  of  Illinois  the 
public  condemnation  of  Douglas's  repeal  was  im- 
mediate and  sweeping,  the  formation  of  opposition 
to  it  was  tentative  and  slow  in  the  central  and 
southern  counties,  where,  among  Whigs  of  South- 
ern birth,  it  proceeded  rather  upon  party  feeling 
than  upon  moral  conviction.  The  new  question 
struck  through  party  lines  in  such  a  manner  as  to 
confuse  and  perplex  the  masses.  But  the  issue 
would  not  be  postponed.  The  Congi^essional  elec- 
tions were  to  be  held  in  the  autumn,  and  the  suc- 
cession of  events  rather  than  the  leadership  of 
politicians  gradually  shaped  the  campaign. 

After   a  most   exciting  parliamentary   struggle 
the  repeal  was  carried  through  Congress  in  May. 
Encouraged  by  this  successful   domination  over 
Vol.  I.— 24 


370  ABEAHAM    LINCOLN 

Chap.  XXI,  Representatives  and  Senators,  Douglas  prepared 
to  force  its  acceptance  by  the  people.  "I  hear 
men  now  say,"  said  he,  "  that  they  are  willing  to 
acquiesce  in  it.  .  .  It  is  not  sufficient  that  they 
shall  not  seek  to  disturb  Nebraska  and  Kansas, 
but  they  must  acquiesce  also  in  the  principle."^ 
In  the  slave  States  this  was  an  easy  task.  The 
most  prominent  Democrat  who  had  voted  against 
the  Nebraska  bill  was  Thomas  H.  Benton.  The 
election  in  Missouri  was  held  in  August,  and  Ben- 
ton was  easily  beaten  by  a  Whig  who  was  as  fierce 
for  repeal  as  Douglas  himself.  In  the  free  States 
the  case  was  altogether  different.  In  Illinois  the 
Democrats  gradually,  but  at  last  with  a  degree  of 
boldness,  shouldered  the  dangerous  dogma.  The 
main  body  of  the  party  rallied  under  Douglas,  ex- 
cepting a  serious  defection  in  the  north;  on  the 
other  hand,  the  Whigs  in  a  body  declared  against 
him,  but  were  weakened  by  a  scattering  desertion 
in  the  center  and  south.  Meanwhile  both  retained 
their  distinctive  party  names  and  organizations. 

Congress  adjourned  early  in  August,  but  Doug- 
las delayed  his  return  to  Illinois.  The  1st  of  Sep- 
tember had  come,  when  it  was  announced  he  would 
return  to  his  home  in  Chicago.  This  was  an  anti- 
slavery  city,  and  the  current  of  popular  condemna- 
tion and  exasperation  was  running  strongly  against 
him.  Public  meetings  of  his  own  former  party 
friends  had  denounced  him.  Street  rowdies  had 
burned  him  in  effigy.  The  opposition  papers 
charged  him  with  skulking  and  being  afraid  to 
meet  his  constituents.     On  the  afternoon  of  his 

1  Douglas's  speech  before  the   Union  Democratic  Club  of  New 
York,  June  3,  1854.    New  York  "Herald,"  June  5,  1854. 


LINCOLN    AND    TKUMBULL  371 

coming  many  flags  in  the  city  and  on  the  shipping  chap.xxl 
in  the  river  and  harbor  were  hung  at  half-mast. 
At  sunset  sundry  city  bells  were  tolled  for  an  hour 
to  signify  the  public  mourning  at  his  downfall. 
When  he  mounted  the  platform  at  night  to  address 
a  crowd  of  some  five  thousand  listeners  he  was 
surrounded  by  a  little  knot  of  personal  friends, 
but  the  audience  before  him  was  evidently  cold  if 
not  actively  hostile. 

He  began  his  speech,  defending  his  course  as 
well  as  he  could.  He  claimed  that  the  slavery 
question  was  forever  settled  by  his  great  principle 
of  "  popular  sovereignty,"  which  took  it  out  of  Con- 
gress and  gave  it  to  the  people  of  the  territories  to 
decide  as  they  pleased.  The  crowd  heard  him  in 
sullen  silence  for  three-quarters  of  an  hour,  when 
their  patience  gave  out,  and  they  began  to  ply  him 
with  questions.  He  endured  their  fire  of  interrog- 
atory for  a  little  while  till  he  lost  his  own  temper. 
Excited  outcry  followed  angry  repartee.  Thrust 
and  rejoinder  were  mingled  with  cheers  and  hisses. 
The  mayor,  who  presided,  tried  to  calm  the  assem- 
blage, but  the  passions  of  the  crowd  would  brook 
no  control.  Douglas,  of  short,  sturdy  build  and 
imperious  and  controversial  nature,  stood  his 
ground  courageously,  with  flushed  and  lowering 
countenance  hurling  defiance  at  his  interrupters, 
calling  them  a  mob,  and  shaking  his  fist  in  their 
faces ;  in  reply  the  crowd  groaned,  hooted,  yelled, 
and  made  the  din  of  Pandemonium.  The  tumultu- 
ous proceeding  continued  until  half-past  ten  o'clock 
at  night,  when  the  baffled  orator  was  finally  but 
very  reluctantly  persuaded  by  his  friends  to  give 
up  the  contest  and  leave  the  stand.    It  was  trum- 


372  ABKAHAM    LINCOLN 

Chap.  XXI.  peted  abroad  by  the  Democratic  newspapers  that 
"  in  the  order-loving,  law-abiding,  abolition-ridden 
city  of  Chicago,  lUinois's  great  statesman  and  rep- 
resentative in  the  United  States  Senate  was  cried 
down  and  refused  the  privilege  of  speaking  " ;  and  as 
usual  the  intolerance  produced  its  natural  reaction. 
Since  Abraham  Lincoln's  return  to  Springfield 
from  his  single  term  of  service  in  Congress,  1847 
to  1849,  though  by  no  means  entirely  withdrawn 
from  politics,  his  campaigning  had  been  greatly 
diminished.  The  period  following  had  for  him 
been  years  of  work,  study,  and  reflection.  His  pro- 
fession of  law  had  become  a  deeper  science  and  a 
higher  responsibility.  His  practice,  receiving  his 
undivided  attention,  brought  him  more  important 
and  more  remunerative  cases.  Losing  nothing  of 
his  genial  humor,  his  character  took  on  the  dignity 
of  a  gi'aver  manhood.  He  was  still  the  center  of  in- 
terest of  every  social  group  he  encountered,  whether 
on  the  street  or  in  the  parlor.  Serene  and  buoy- 
ant of  temper,  cordial  and  winning  of  language, 
charitable  and  tolerant  of  opinion,  his  very  pres- 
ence diffused  a  glow  of  confidence  and  kindness. 
Wherever  he  went  he  left  an  ever- widening  ripple 
of  smiles,  jests,  and  laughter.  His  radiant  good- 
fellowship  was  beloved  and  sought  alike  by  politi- 
cal opponents  and  partisan  friends.  His  sturdy 
and  delicate  integrity,  recognized  far  and  wide, 
had  long  since  won  him  the  blunt  but  hearty 
sobriquet  of  "Honest  Old  Abe."  But  it  became 
noticeable  that  he  was  less  among  the  crowd  and 
more  in  the  solitude  of  his  office  or  his  study,  and 
that  he  seemed  ever  in  haste  to  leave  the  eager 
circle  he  was  entertaining. 


LINCOLN    AND    TEUMBULL  373 

It  is  in  the  midsummer  of  1854  that  we  find  him  chap.xxi. 
reappearing  upon  the  stump  in  central  Illinois.  The 
rural  population  always  welcomed  his  oratory,  and 
he  never  lacked  invitations  to  address  the  public. 
His  first  speeches  on  the  new  and  all-absorbing 
topic  were  made  in  the  neighboring  towns,  and  in 
the  counties  adjoining  his  own.  Towards  the  end 
of  August  the  candidates  for  Congress  in  that  dis- 
trict were,  in  Western  phrase,  "on  the  track." 
Richard  Yates,  afterwards  one  of  the  famous  "  war 
governors,"  sought  a  reelection  as  a  Whig.  Thomas 
L.  Harris  as  a  Douglas-Democrat  strove  to  sup- 
plant him.  Local  politics  became  active,  and  Lin- 
coln was  sent  for  from  all  directions  to  address  the 
people.  When  he  went,  however,  he  distinctly 
announced  that  he  did  not  purpose  to  take  up  his 
time  with  this  personal  and  congressional  contro- 
versy. His  intention  was  to  discuss  the  principles 
of  the  Nebraska  bill. 

Once  launched  upon  this  theme,  men  were 
surprised  to  find  him  imbued  with  an  unwonted 
seriousness.  They  heard  from  his  lips  fewer  anec- 
dotes and  more  history.  Careless  listeners  who 
came  to  laugh  at  his  jokes  were  held  by  the  strong 
current  of  his  reasoning  and  the  flashes  of  his 
earnest  eloquence,  and  were  lifted  up  by  the  range 
and  tenor  of  his  argument  into  a  fresher  and  purer 
political  atmosphere.  The  new  discussion  was 
fraught  with  deeper  questions  than  the  improve- 
ment of  the  Sangamon,  protective  tariffs,  or  the  ori- 
gin of  the  Mexican  war.  Down  through  incidents  of 
legislation,  through  history  of  government,  even 
underlying  cardinal  maxims  of  political  philosophy, 
it  touched  the  very  bed-rock  of  primary  human 


374  ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 

Chap. XXI.  riglits.  Such  a  subject  fm-nished  material  for  the 
inborn  gifts  of  the  speaker,  his  intuitive  logic,  his 
impulsive  patriotism,  his  pure  and  poetical  con- 
ception of  legal  and  moral  justice. 

Douglas,  since  his  public  rebuff  at  Chicago  on 
September  1,  had  begun,  after  a  few  days  of  delay 
and  rest,  a  toui'of  speech-making  southward  through 
the  State.  At  these  meetings  he  had  at  least  a  re- 
spectful hearing,  and  as  he  neared  central  Illinois 
the  reception  accorded  him  became  more  enthu- 
siastic. The  chief  interest  of  the  campaign  finally 
centered  in  a  sort  of  political  tournament  which 
took  place  at  the  capital,  Springfield,  during  the 
first  week  of  October ;  the  State  Agricultural  Fair 
having  called  together  great  crowds,  and  among 
them  the  principal  politicians  of  Illinois.  This  was 
Lincoln's  home,  in  a  strong  Whig  county,  and  in  a 
section  of  the  State  where  that  party  had  hitherto 
found  its  most  compact  and  trustworthy  forces. 
As  yet  Lincoln  had  made  but  a  single  speech  there 
on  the  Nebraska  question.  Of  the  Federal  appoint- 
ments under  the  Nebraska  bill,  Douglas  secured 
two  for  Illinois,  one  of  which,  the  oflBce  of  surveyor- 
general  of  Kansas,  was  given  to  John  Calhoun, 
the  same  man  who,  in  the  pioneer  days  twenty 
years  before,  was  county  surveyor  in  Sangamon 
and  had  employed  Abraham  Lincoln  as  his  deputy. 
He  was  also  the  same  who  three  years  later  re- 
ceived the  sobriquet  of  "John  Candlebox  Calhoun," 
having  acquired  unenviable  notoriety  from  his 
reputed  connection  with  the  "Cincinnati  Dii-ect- 
ory  "  and  "  Candlebox  "  election  frauds  in  Kansas, 
and  with  the  famous  Lecompton  Constitution. 
Calhoun  was  still  in  Illinois  doing  campaign  work 


LINCOLN    AND    TRUMBULL  375 

in  propagating  the  Nebraska  faith.  He  was  rec-  chap.xxi 
ognized  as  a  man  of  considerable  professional  and 
political  talent,  and  had  made  a  speech  in  Spring- 
field to  which  Lincoln  had  replied.  It  was,  how- 
ever, merely  a  casual  and  local  affair  and  was  not 
described  or  reported  by  the  newspapers. 

The  meetings  at  the  State  Fair  were  of  a  differ- 
ent character.  The  audiences  were  composed  of 
leading  men  from  nearly  all  the  counties  of  the 
State.  Though  the  discussion  of  party  questions 
had  been  going  on  all  summer  with  more  or  less 
briskness,  yet  such  was  the  general  confusion  in 
politics  that  many  honest  and  intelligent  voters 
and  even  leaders  were  still  undecided  in  their  opin- 
ions. The  fair  continued  nearly  a  week.  Douglas 
made  a  speech  on  the  first  day,  Tuesday,  October 
3.  Lincoln  replied  to  him  on  the  following  day, 
October  4.  Douglas  made  a  rejoinder,  and  on  that 
night  and  the  succeeding  day  and  night  a  running 
fire  of  debate  ensued,  in  which  John  Calhoun, 
Judge  Trumbull,  Judge  Sidney  Breese,  Colonel  E. 
D.  Taylor,  and  perhaps  others,  took  part. 

Douglas's  speech  was  doubtless  intended  by  him 
and  expected  by  his  friends  to  be  the  principal  and 
the  conclusive  argument  of  the  occasion.  But  by 
this  time  the  Whig  party  of  the  central  counties, 
though  shaken  by  the  disturbing  features  of  the 
Nebraska  question,  had  nevertheless  re-formed  its 
lines,  and  assumed  the  offensive  to  which  its  pre- 
ponderant numbers  entitled  it,  and  resolved  not  to 
surrender  either  its  name  or  organization.  In 
Sangamon  County,  its  strongest  men,  Abraham 
Lincoln  and  Stephen  T.  Logan,  were  made  candi- 
dates for  the  Legislature.    The  term  of  Douglas's 


376  ABKAHAM    LINCOLN 

Chap.  XXI.  colleaguG  in  the  United  States  Senate,  General 
James  Shields,  was  about  to  expire,  and  the  new 
Legislature  would  choose  his  successor.  To  the 
war  of  party  principles  was  therefore  added  the 
incentive  of  a  brilHant  official  prize.  The  Whigs 
were  keenly  alive  to  this  chance  and  its  influence 
upon  their  possible  ascendency  in  the  State. 

Lincoln's  Whig  friends  had  therefore  seen  his 
reappearance  in  active  discussion  with  unfeigned 
pleasure.  Of  old  they  knew  his  peculiar  hold  and 
influence  upon  the  people  and  his  party.  His  few 
speeches  in  the  adjoining  counties  had  shown  them 
his  maturing  intellect,  his  expanding  power  in  de- 
bate. Acting  upon  himself,  this  renewed  practice 
on  the  stump  crystallized  his  thought  and  brought 
method  to  his  argument.  The  opposition  news- 
papers had  accused  him  of  "  mousing  about  the 
libraries  in  the  State  House."  The  charge  was 
true.  Where  others  were  content  to  take  state- 
ments at  second  hand,  he  preferred  to  verify  cita- 
tions as  well  as  to  find  new  ones.  His  treatment 
of  his  theme  was  therefore  not  only  bold  but 
original. 

By  a  sort  of  common  consent  his  party  looked  to 
him  to  answer  Douglas's  speech.  This  was  no  light 
task,  and  no  one  knew  it  better  than  Lincoln. 
Douglas's  real  ability  was,  and  remains,  unques- 
tioned. In  many  qualities  of  intellect  he  was  truly 
the  "  Little  Giant "  which  popular  fancy  nicknamed 
him.  It  was  no  mere  chance  that  raised  the  Ver- 
mont cabinet-maker's  apprentice  from  a  penniless 
stranger  in  Illinois  in  1833  to  a  formidable  com- 
petitor for  supreme  leadership  in  the  great  Demo- 
cratic party  of  the  nation  in  1852.    When  after  the 


LINCOLN    AND    TKUMBULL  377 

lapse  of  a  quarter  of  a  century  we  measure  Mm  chap.  xxi. 
with  the  veteran  chiefs  whom  he  aspired  to  sup- 
plant, we  see  the  substantial  basis  of  his  confidence 
and  ambition.  His  great  error  of  statesmanship 
aside,  he  stands  forth  more  than  the  peer  of  as- 
sociates who  underrated  his  power  and  looked 
askance  at  his  pretensions.  In  the  six  years  of  per- 
ilous party  conflict  which  followed,  every  conspicu- 
ous party  rival  disappeared  in  obscurity,  disgrace, 
or  rebellion.  Battling  while  others  feasted,  sowing 
where  others  reaped,  abandoned  by  his  allies  and 
persecuted  by  his  friends,  Douglas  alone  emerged 
from  the  fight  with  loyal  faith  and  unshaken  cour- 
age, bringing  with  him  through  treachery,  defeat, 
and  disaster  the  unflinching  allegiance  and  enthu- 
siastic admiration  of  nearly  three-fifths  of  the  rank 
and  file  of  the  once  victorious  army  of  Democratic 
voters  at  the  north.  He  had  not  only  proved  him- 
self their  most  gallant  chief,  but  as  a  final  crown 
of  merit  he  led  his  still  powerful  contingent  of  fol- 
lowers to  a  patriotic  defense  of  the  Constitution 
and  government  which  some  of  his  compeers  put 
into  such  mortal  jeopardy. 

We  find  him  here  at  the  beginning  of  this  severe 
confiict  in  the  full  flush  of  hope  and  ambition.  He 
was  winning  in  personal  manner,  brilliant  in  debate, 
aggressive  in  party  strategy.  To  this  he  added  an 
adroitness  in  evasion  and  false  logic  perhaps  never 
equaled,  and  in  his  defense  of  the  Nebraska  meas- 
ure this  questionable  but  convenient  gift  was  ever 
his  main  reliance.  Besides,  his  long  official  career 
gave  to  his  utterances  the  stamp  and  glitter  of  orac- 
ular statesmanship.  But  while  Lincoln  knew  all 
Douglas's  strong  points  he  was  no  less  familiar  with 


378  ABKAHAM    LINCOLN 

Chap  XXI.  his  Weak  ones.  They  had  come  to  central  Illinois 
about  the  same  time,  and  had  in  a  measure  grown 
up  together.  Socially  they  were  on  friendly  terms; 
politically  they  had  been  opponents  for  twenty 
years.  At  the  bar,  in  the  Legislature,  and  on  the 
stump  they  had  often  met  and  measured  strength. 
Each  therefore  knew  the  temper  of  the  other's  steel 
no  less  than  every  joint  in  his  armor. 

It  was  a  peculiarity  of  the  early  West — perhaps 
it  pertains  to  all  primitive  communities — that  the 
people  retained  a  certain  fragment  of  the  chivalric 
sentiment,  a  remnant  of  the  instinct  of  hero-wor- 
ship. As  the  ruder  athletic  sports  faded  out,  as 
shooting-matches,  wrestling-matches,  horse-races, 
and  kindred  games  fell  into  disuse,  political  debate 
became,  in  a  certain  degree,  their  substitute.  But 
the  principle  of  championship,  while  it  yielded  high 
honor  and  consideration  to  the  victor,  imposed  upon 
him  the  corresponding  obligation  to  recognize  every 
opponent  and  accept  every  challenge.  To  refuse 
any  contest,  to  plead  any  privilege,  would  be  in- 
stant loss  of  prestige.  This  supreme  moment  in 
Lincoln's  career,  this  fateful  turning  of  the  polit- 
ical tide,  found  him  fully  prepared  for  the  new 
battle,  equipped  by  reflection  and  research  to  per- 
mit himself  to  be  pitted  against  the  champion  of 
Democracy — against  the  very  author  of  the  raging 
storm  of  parties;  and  it  displays  his  rare  self- 
confidence  and  consciousness  of  high  ability,  to 
venture  to  attack  such  an  antagonist. 

Douglas  made  his  speech,  according  to  notice,  on 
the  first  day  of  the  fair,  Tuesday,  October  3.  "I 
will  mention,"  said  he,  in  his  opening  remarks, 
"  that  it  is  understood  by  some  gentlemen  that  Mr. 


LINCOLN    AND    TEUMBULL  379 

Lincoln,  of  this  city,  is  expected  to  answer  me.  K  chap.xxi. 
this  is  the  understanding,  I  wish  that  Mr.  Lincoln 
would  step  forward  and  let  us  arrange  some  plan 
upon  which  to  carry  out  this  discussion."  Mr. 
Lincoln  was  not  there  at  the  moment,  and  the 
arrangement  could  not  then  be  made.  Unpropi- 
tious  weather  had  brought  the  meeting  to  the  Rep- 
resentatives' Hall  in  the  State  House,  which  was 
densely  packed.  The  next  day  found  the  same 
hall  filled  as  before  to  hear  Mr.  Lincoln.  Douglas 
occupied  a  seat  just  in  front  of  him,  and  in  his  re- 
joinder he  explained  that  "  my  friend  Mr.  Lincoln 
expressly  invited  me  to  stay  and  hear  him  speak 
to-day,  as  he  heard  me  yesterday,  and  to  answer 
and  defend  myself  as  best  I  could.  I  here  thank 
him  for  his  courteous  offer."  The  occasion  greatly 
equalized  the  relative  standing  of  the  champions. 
The  familiar  surroundings,  the  presence  and  hearty 
encouragement  of  his  friends,  put  Lincoln  in  his 
best  vein.  His  bubbling  humor,  his  perfect  tem- 
per, and  above  all  the  overwhelming  current  of 
his  historical  arraignment  extorted  the  admiration 
of  even  his  political  enemies.  "His  speech  was 
four  hours  in  length,"  wrote  one  of  these,  "and      corre- 

^      '  '  spoudence 

was  conceived  and  expressed  in  a  most  happy  and    <. Mi^^fm., 
pleasant  style,  and  was  received  with  abundant  ca^!""oito- 
applause.    At  times  he  made    statements  which  ^^^  ^'  ^'^^^• 
brought   Senator  Douglas  to   his  feet,  and  then 
good-humored  passages  of  wit  created  much  inter- 
est and  enthusiasm."    All  reports  plainly  indicate 
that  Douglas  was  astonished  and  disconcerted  at 
this  unexpected  strength  of  argument,  and  that  he 
struggled  vainly  through  a  two  hours'  rejoinder  to 
break  the  force  of  Lincoln's  victory  in  the  debate. 


380  ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

Chap. XXL  Lincoln  had  hitherto  been  the  foremost  man  in  his 
district.  That  single  effort  made  him  the  leader 
on  the  new  question  in  his  State. 

The  fame  of  this  success  brought  Lincoln  urgent 
calls  from  all  the  places  where  Douglas  was  ex- 
pected to  speak.  Accordingly,  twelve  days  after- 
wards, October  16,  they  once  more  met  in  debate, 
at  Peoria.  Lincoln,  as  before,  gave  Douglas  the 
opening  and  closing  speeches,  explaining  that  he 
was  willing  to  yield  this  advantage  in  order  to 
secure  a  hearing  from  the  Democratic  portion  of 
his  listeners.  The  audience  was  a  large  one,  but 
not  so  representative  in  its  character  as  that  at 
Springfield.  The  occasion  was  made  memorable, 
however,  by  the  fact  that  when  Lincoln  returned 
home  he  wrote  out  and  published  his  speech.  We 
have  therefore  the  revised  text  of  his  argument, 
and  are  able  to  estimate  its  character  and  value. 
Marking  as  it  does  with  unmistakable  precision  a 
step  in  the  second  period  of  his  intellectual  devel- 
opment, it  deserves  the  careful  attention  of  the 
student  of  his  life. 

After  the  lapse  of  more  than  a  quarter  of  a 
century  the  critical  reader  still  finds  it  a  model  of 
brevity,  directness,  terse  diction,  exact  and  lucid 
historical  statement,  and  full  of  logical  propositions 
so  short  and  so  strong  as  to  resemble  mathematical 
axioms.  Above  all  it  is  pervaded  by  an  elevation 
of  thought  and  aim  that  lifts  it  out  of  the  common- 
place of  mere  party  controversy.  Comparing  it 
with  his  later  speeches,  we  find  it  to  contain  not 
only  the  argument  of  the  hour,  but  the  premonition 
of  the  broader  issues  into  which  the  new  struggle 
was  destined  soon  to  expand. 


LINCOLN    AND    TKUMBULL  381 

The  main,  broad  current  of  his  reasoning  was  to  chap.xxl 
vindicate  and  restore  the  policy  of  the  fathers  of 
the  country  in  the  restriction  of  slavery ;  but  run- 
ning through  this  like  a  thread  of  gold  was  the 
demonstration  of  the  essential  injustice  and  im- 
morality of  the  system.    He  said : 

This  declared  indifference  but,  as  I  must  think,  covert 
zeal  for  the  spread  of  slavery,  I  cannot  but  hate.  I  hate 
it  because  of  the  monstrous  injustice  of  slavery  itself. 
I  hate  it  because  it  deprives  our  repubhcan  example  of 
its  just  influence  in  the  world;  enables  the  enemies  of  free 
institutions  with  plausibility  to  taunt  us  as  hypocrites ; 
causes  the  real  friends  of  freedom  to  doubt  our  sincerity; 
and  especially  because  it  forces  so  many  really  good  men 
among  ourselves  into  an  open  war  with  the  very  funda- 
mental principles  of  civO.  liberty,  criticizing  the  Declara- 
tion of  Independence  and  insisting  that  there  is  no  right 
principle  of  action  but  self-interest. 


The  doctrine  of  self-government  is  right, —  absolutely 
and  eternally  right, —  but  it  has  no  just  application  as 
here  attempted.  Or  perhaps  I  should  rather  say  that 
whether  it  has  such  just  application,  depends  upon 
whether  a  negro  is  not,  or  is,  a  man.  If  he  is  not  a  man, 
in  that  case  he  who  is  a  man  may  as  a  matter  of  self- 
government  do  just  what  he  pleases  with  him.  But  if 
the  negro  is  a  man,  is  it  not  to  that  extent  a  total  destruc- 
tion of  self-government  to  say  that  he  too  shall  not 
govern  himself?  When  the  white  man  governs  himself, 
that  is  self-government;  but  when  he  governs  himself 
and  also  governs  another  man,  that  is  more  than  self- 
government  —  that  is  despotism. 

What  I  do  say  is,  that  no  man  is  good  enough  to  govern 
another  man  without  that  other's  consent. 

The  master  not  only  governs  the  slave  without  his 
consent,  but  he  governs  him  by  a  set  of  rules  altogether 
different  from  those  which  he   prescribes  for  himself. 


382  ABKAHAM    LINCOLN 

Chap.  XXI.  Alio w  all  the  governed  an  equal  voice  in  the  government ; 
that,  and  that  only,  is  self-government. 


Slavery  is  founded  in  the  selfishness  of  man's  nature 

—  opposition  to  it,  in  his  love  of  justice.  These  principles 
are  an  eternal  antagonism ;  and  when  brought  into  colli- 
sion so  fiercely  as  slavery  extension  brings  them,  shocks 
and  throes  and  convulsions  must  ceaselessly  follow.  Re- 
peal the  Missouri  Compromise — repeal  all  compromise — 
repeal  the  Declaration  of  Independence  —  repeal  all  past 
history  —  still  you  cannot  repeal  human  nature. 

I  particularly  object  to  the  new  position  which  the 
avowed  principle  of  this  Nebraska  law  gives  to  slavery 
in  the  body  politic.  I  object  to  it  because  it  assumes 
that  there  can  be  moral  right  in  the  enslaving  of  one  man 
by  another.  I  object  to  it  as  a  dangerous  dalliance  for  a 
free  people, —  a  sad  evidence  that  feeling  prosperity,  we 
forget  right, —  that  liberty  as  a  principle  we  have  ceased 
to  revere. 

Little  by  little,  but  steadily  as  man's  march  to  the 
grave,  we  have  been  giving  up  the  old  for  the  new  faith. 
Near  eighty  years  ago  we  began  by  declaring  that  all 
men  are  created  equal ;  but  now  from  that  beginning  we 
have  run  down  to  the  other  declaration  that  for  some 
men  to  enslave  others  is  a  "  sacred  right  of  self-govern- 
ment." These  principles  cannot  stand  together.  They 
are  as  opposite  as  God  and  mammon. 

Our  Republican  robe  is  soiled  and  trailed  in  the  dust. 
Let  us  repurify  it.  Let  us  turn  and  wash  it  white,  in  the 
spirit  if  not  the  blood  of  the  Revolution,  Let  us  turn 
slavery  from  its  claims  of  "  moral  right "  back  upon  its 
existing  legal  rights,  and  its  arguments  of  "  necessity." 
Let  us  return  it  to  the  position  our  fathers  gave  it,  and 
there  let  it  rest  in  peace.  Let  us  readopt  the  Declaration 
of  Independence,  and  the  practices  and  policy  which  har- 
monize with  it.   Let  North  and  South  —  let  all  Americans 

—  let  all  lovers  of  liberty  everywhere  —  join  in  the  great 
and  good  work.     If  we  do  this,  we  shall  not  only  have 


LINCOLN    AND    TRUMBULL  383 

saved  the  Union,  but  we  shall  have  so  saved  it,  as  to  chap.xxi. 
make  and  to  keep  it  forever  worthy  of  the  saving.     We 
shall  have  so  saved  it  that  the  succeeding  millions  of  free, 
happy  people,  the  world  over,  shall  rise  up  and  call  us 
blessed  to  the  latest  generations. 

The  election  which  occurred  on  November  7  1854. 
resulted  disastrously  for  Douglas.  It  was  soon 
found  that  the  Legislature  on  joint  ballot  would 
probably  give  a  majority  for  Senator  against 
Shields,  the  incumbent,  or  any  other  Democrat 
who  had  supported  the  Nebraska  bill.  Who  might 
become  his  successor  was  more  problematical. 
The  opposition  majority  was  made  up  of  anti- 
Nebraska  Democrats,  of  what  were  then  called 
"  abolitionists  "  (Lovejoy  had  been  elected  among 
these),  and  finally  of  Whigs,  who  numbered  by  far 
the  largest  portion.  But  these  elements,  except  on 
one  single  issue,  were  somewhat  irreconcilable.  In 
this  condition  of  uncertainty  a  host  of  candidates 
sprung  up.  There  was  scarcely  a  member  of  Con- 
gress from  Illinois  —  indeed,  scarcely  a  prominent 
man  in  the  State  of  any  party  —  who  did  not  con- 
ceive the  flattering  dream  that  he  himself  might 
become  the  lucky  medium  of  compromise  and 
harmony. 

Among  the  Whigs,  though  there  were  other 
aspirants,  Lincoln,  whose  speeches  had  contrib- 
uted so  much  to  win  the  election,  was  the  natural 
and  most  prominent  candidate.  According  to 
Western  custom,  he  addressed  a  short  noise  to 
most  of  the  Whig  members  elect  and  to  other 
influential  members  of  the  party  asking  their  sup- 
port. Generally  the  replies  were  not  only  affirma- 
tive but  cordial  and  even   enthusiastic.     But  a 


384  ABKAHAM    LINCOLN 

Chap.  XXI.  dilemma  now  arose.  Lincoln  had  been  chosen  one 
of  the  members  from  Sangamon  County  by  some 
650  majority.  The  Constitution  of  Illinois  con- 
tained a  clause  disqualifying  members  of  the 
Legislature  and  certain  other  designated  officials 
from  being  elected  to  the  Senate.  Good  lawyers 
generally  believed  this  provision  repugnant  to  the 
Constitution  of  the  United  States,  and  that  the 
qualifications  of  Senators  and  Representatives 
therein  prescribed  could  be  neither  increased  nor 
diminished  by  a  State.  But  the  opposition  had 
only  a  majority  of  one  or  two.  If  Lincoln  resigned 
his  membership  in  the  Legislature  this  might 
destroy  the  majority.  If  he  refused  to  resign, 
such  refusal  might  carry  some  member  to  the 
Democrats. 

At  last,  upon  full  deliberation,  Lincoln  resigned 
his  seat,  relying  upon  the  six  or  seven  hundred 
majority  in  Sangamon  County  to  elect  another 
Whig.  It  was  a  delusive  trust.  A  reaction  in  the 
Whig  ranks  against  "  abolitionism  "  suddenly  set 
in.  A  listless  apathy  succeeded  the  intense  excite- 
ment and  strain  of  the  summer's  canvass.  Local 
rivalries  forced  the  selection  of  an  unpopular  candi- 
date. Shrewdly  noting  all  these  signs  the  Demo- 
crats of  Sangamon  organized  what  is  known  in 
Western  politics  as  a  "still-hunt."  They  made  a 
feint  of  allowing  the  special  election  to  go  by 
default.  They  made  no  nomination.  They  per- 
mitted an  independent  Democrat,  known  under 
the  sobriquet  of  "  Steamboat  Smith,"  to  parade  his 
own  name.  Up  to  the  very  day  of  election  they 
gave  no  public  sign,  although  they  had  in  the 
utmost  secrecy  instructed  and  drilled  their  pre- 


OWEN    I,OVEJOY. 


LINCOLN    AND    TRUMBULL  385 

cinct  squads.  On  the  morning  of  election  the  chap.xxi. 
working  Democrats  appeared  at  every  poll,  dis- 
tributing tickets  bearing  the  name  of  a  single  can- 
didate not  before  mentioned  by  any  one.  They 
were  busy  all  day  long  spurring  up  the  lagging 
and  indifferent,  and  bringing  the  aged,  the  infirm, 
and  the  distant  voters  in  vehicles.  Their  ruse  suc- 
ceeded. The  Whigs  were  taken  completely  by 
surprise,  and  in  a  remarkably  small  total  vote, 
McDaniels,  Democrat,  was  chosen  by  about  sixty 
majority.  The  Whigs  in  other  parts  of  the  State 
were  furious  at  the  unlooked-for  result,  and  the 
incident  served  gi'eatly  to  complicate  the  senatorial 
canvass. 

Nevertheless  it  turned  out  that  even  after  this 
loss  the  opposition  to  Douglas  would  have  a 
majority  on  joint  ballot.  But  how  unite  this 
opposition  made  up  of  Whigs,  of  Democrats,  and 
of  so-called  abolitionists  ?  It  was  just  at  that 
moment  in  the  impending  revolution  of  parties 
when  everything  was  doubt,  distrust,  uncertainty. 
Only  the  abolitionists,  ever  aggressive  on  all 
slavery  issues,  were  ready  to  lead  off  in  new  com- 
binations, but  nobody  was  willing  to  encounter  the 
odium  of  acting  with  them.  They,  too,  were  pres- 
ent at  the  State  Fair,  and  heard  Lincoln  reply  to 
Douglas.  At  the  close  of  that  reply,  and  just 
before  Douglas's  rejoinder,  Love  joy  had  announced 
to  the  audience  that  a  Republican  State  Conven- 
tion would  be  immediately  held  in  the  Senate 
Chamber,  extending  an  invitation  to  delegates  to 
join  in  it.  But  the  appeal  fell  upon  unwilling  ears. 
Scarcely  a  corporal's  guard  left  the  discussion. 
The  Senate  Chamber  presented  a  discouraging 
Vol.  I.— 25 


386  ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

Chap.  XXI.  aiTay  of  empty  benches.  Only  some  twenty-six 
delegates  were  there  to  represent  the  whole  State 
of  Illinois.  Nothing  daunted,  they  made  their 
speeches  and  read  their  platform  to  each  other.^ 
Particularly  in  their  addresses  they  praised  Lin- 
coln's great  speech  which  they  had  just  heard,  not- 
withstanding his  declarations  differed  so  essentially 
from  their  new-made  creed.  "  Ichabod  raved,"  said 
the  Democratic  organ  in  derision,  "and  Lovejoy 
swelled,  and  all  indorsed  the  sentiments  of  that 
speech."  Not  content  with  this,  without  consent  or 
consultation,  they  placed  Lincoln's  name  in  the  list 
of  their  State  Central  Committee. 

Matters  remained  in  this  attitude  until  their 
chairman  called  a  meeting  and  notified  Lincoln  to 
^odd£g°  attend.  In  reply  he  sent  the  following  letter  of 
1864.^"  M8.  inquiiy :  "  While  I  have  pen  in  hand  allow  me 
to  say  that  I  have  been  perplexed  to  understand 
why  my  name  was  placed  on  that  committee. 
I  was  not  consulted  on  the  subject,  nor  was  I 
apprised  of  the  appointment  until  I  discovered  it 
by  accident  two  or  three  weeks  afterwards.  I  sup- 
pose my  opposition  to  the  principle  of  slavery  is  as 
strong  as  that  of  any  member  of  the  Republican 
party ;  but  I  had  also  supposed  that  the  extent  to 

1  Their  resolutions  were  radical  the  fugitive  slave  law ;  to  restrict 

for  that  day,  but  not  so  extreme  slavery  to  those  States  in  which 

as  was  generally  feared.     On  the  it  exists ;  to  prohibit  the  admis- 

slavery  question    they    declared  sion  of  any  more   slave  States; 

their  purpose :  to  abolish  slavery  in  the  District 

To    restore    Kansas    and    Ne-  of  Columbia ;  to  exclude  slavery 

braska  to  the  position  of  free  ter-  from  all   territories   over  which 

ritories ;  that  as  the  Constitution  the  general  Government  has  ex- 

of  the  United  States  vests  in  the  elusive  jurisdiction,  and   finally 

States  and  not  in  Congress  the  to  resist  the  acqiiirement  of  any 

power  to  legislate  for  the  ren-  more    territories   unless  slavery 

dition    of  fugitives  from  labor,  shall  have  been  therein  forever 

to  repeal  and  entirely  abrogate  prohibited. 


LINCOLN    AND    TRUMBULL  387 

which  I  feel  authorized  to  carry  that  opposition  chap.  xxi. 
practically  was  not  at  all  satisfactory  to  that  party. 
The  leading  men  who  organized  that  party  were 
present  on  the  4th  of  October  at  the  discussion  be- 
tween Douglas  and  myself  at  Springfield  and  had 
full  opportunity  to  not  misunderstand  my  position. 
Do  I  misunderstand  them  ?  " 

Whether  this  letter  was  ever  replied  to  is  uncer- 
tain, though  improbable.  No  doubt  it  led  to  con- 
ferences during  the  meeting  of  the  Legislature, 
early  in  the  year  1855,  when  the  senatorial  ques- 
tion came  on  for  decision.  It  has  been  suggested 
that  Lincoln  made  dishonorable  concessions  of 
principle  to  get  the  votes  of  Love  joy  and  his 
friends.  The  statement  is  too  absurd  to  merit 
serious  contradiction.  The  real  fact  is  that  Mr. 
Giddings,  then  in  Congress,  wi'ote  to  Lovejoy  and 
others  to  support  Lincoln.  Various  causes  delayed 
the  event,  but  finally,  on  February  8,  1855,  the 
Legislature  went  into  joint  ballot.  A  number  of 
candidates  were  put  in  nomination,  but  the  contest 
narrowed  itself  down  to  three.  Abraham  Lincoln 
was  supported  by  the  Whigs  and  Free-soilers ; 
James  Shields  by  the  Douglas-Democrats.  As  be- 
tween these  two,  Lincoln  would  easily  have  suc- 
ceeded, had  not  five  anti-Nebraska  Democrats 
refused  under  any  circumstances  to  vote  for  him 
or  any  other  Whig,^  and  steadily  voted  during  six 

1  "All  that   remained   of  the  one  of  the  two  Representatives 

anti-Nebraska    force,    excepting  above  named  '  could  never  vote 

Judd,  Cook,  Palmer,  Baker,  and  for  a  Whig,'  and   this  incensed 

Allen,  of  Madison,   and  two    or  some   twenty  Whigs   to    'think' 

three  of  the  secret  Matteson  men,  they  would  never  vote  for  the  man 

would  go  into  caucus,  and  I  could  of  the  five." — Lincoln  to  the  Hon. 

get  the  nomination  of  that  cau-  E.   B.  Washburne,   February   9, 

cus.     But  the  three  Senators  and  1855.     MS. 


388  ABKAHAM    LINCOLN 

Chap.  XXI.  ballots  for  Lyman  Trumbull.  The  first  vote  stood  : 
Lincoln,  45 ;  Shields,  41 ;  Trumbull,  5  ;  scattering, 
8.  Two  or  three  Whigs  had  thrown  away  their 
votes  on  this  first  ballot,  and  though  they  now 
returned  and  adhered  to  him,  the  demoralizing 
example  was  imitated  by  various  members  of  the 
coalition.  On  the  sixth  ballot  the  vote  stood :  Lin- 
coln, 36 ;  Shields,  41 ;  Trumbull,  8 ;  scattering,  13. 
At  this  stage  of  the  proceedings  the  Douglas- 
Democrats  executed  a  change  of  front,  and,  drop- 
ping Shields,  threw  nearly  their  full  strength,  44 
votes,  for  Governor  Joel  A.  Matteson.  The 
maneuver  was  not  unexpected,  for  though  the 
Governor  and  the  party  newspapers  had  hitherto 
vehemently  asserted  he  was  not  a  candidate,  the 
political  signs  plainly  contradicted  such  statement. 
Matteson  had  assumed  a  quasi-independent  posi- 
tion ;  kept  himself  non-commital  on  Nebraska,  and 
opposed  Douglas's  scheme  of  tonnage  duties  to 
improve  Western  rivers  and  harbors.  Like  the 
majority  of  Western  men  he  had  risen  from 
humble  beginnings,  and  from  being  an  emigrant, 
farmer,  merchant,  and  manufacturer,  had  become 
Governor.  In  office  he  had  devoted  himself  spe- 
cially to  the  economical  and  material  questions 
affecting  Illinois,  and  in  this  role  had  a  wide  pop- 
ularity with  all  classes  and  parties. 

The  substitution  of  his  name  was  a  promising 
device.  The  ninth  ballot  gave  him  47  votes.  The 
opposition  under  the  excitement  of  non-partisan 
appeals  began  to  break  up.  Of  the  remaining 
votes  Lincoln  received  15,  Trumbull  35,  scatter- 
ing, 1.  In  this  critical  moment  Lincoln  exhibited  a 
generosity  and  a  sagacity  above  the  range  of  the 


LINCOLN    AND    TKUMBULL  389 

mere  politician's  vision.  He  urged  upon  his  Whig  chap.xxl 
friends  and  supporters  to  drop  his  own  name  and 
join  without  hesitation  or  conditions  in  the  elec- 
tion of  Trumbull.^  This  was  putting  their  fidelity 
to  a  bitter  trial.  Upon  every  issue  but  the  Nebraska 
bill  Trumbull  still  avowed  himself  an  uncompro- 
mising Democrat.  The  faction  of  five  had  been 
stubborn  to  defiance  and  disaster.  They  would 
compel  the  mountain  to  go  to  Mahomet.  It  seemed 
an  unconditional  surrender  of  the  Whig  party. 
But  such  was  Lincoln's  influence  upon  his  adher- 
ents that  at  his  request  they  made  the  sweeping 
sacrifice,  though  with  lingering  sorrow.  The  pro- 
ceedings had  wasted  away  a  long  afternoon  of 
most  tedious  suspense.  Evening  had  come;  the 
gas  was  lighted  in  the  hall,  the  galleries  were  filled 
with  eager  women,  the  lobbies  were  packed  with 
restless  and  anxious  men.  All  had  forgotten  the 
lapse  of  hours,  their  fatigue  and  their  hunger,  in 
the  absorption  of  the  fluctuating  contest.  The  roll- 
call  of  the  tenth  ballot  still  showed  15  votes  for 
Lincoln,  36  for  Trumbull,  47  for  Matteson.  Amid 
an  excitement  which  was  becoming  painful,  and 

1 "  In  the  mean  time  our  Mends,  ingly  advised  my  remaining 
with  a  view  of  detaining  our  friends  to  go  for  him,  which  they 
expected  bolters,  had  been  turn-  did,  and  elected  him  on  that,  the 
ing  from  me  to  Trumbull  till  he  tenth  ballot.  Such  is  the  way 
had  risen  to  35  and  I  had  been  the  thing  was  done.  I  think  you 
reduced  to  15.  These  would  would  have  done  the  same  under 
never  desert  me  except  by  my  the  circumstances,  though  Judge 
direction  ;  but  I  became  satisfied  Davis,  who  came  down  this  morn- 
that  if  we  could  prevent  Matte-  ing,  declares  he  never  would 
son's  election  one  or  two  ballots  have  consented  to  the  47  [oppo- 
more,  we  could  not  possibly  do  sition]  men  being  controlled  by 
so  a  single  ballot  after  my  friends  the  five.  I  regret  my  defeat 
should  begin  to  return  to  me  moderately,  but  am  not  nervous 
from  Trumbull.  So  I  determined  about  it."  —  Lincoln  to  Wash- 
to  strike  at  once;   and  accord-  burne,  February  9,  1855.    MS. 


390  ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

Chap.  XXI.  in  a  silence  where  spectators  scarcely  breathed, 
Judge  Stephen  T.  Logan,  Lincoln's  nearest  and 
warmest  friend,  arose  and  announced  the  purpose  of 
the  remaining  Whigs  to  decide  the  contest,  where- 
upon the  entu-e  fifteen  changed  their  votes  to 
Trumbull.  This  gave  him  the  necessary  number 
of  fifty-one,  and  elected  him  a  Senator  of  the 
United  States. 

At  that  early  day  an  election  to  the  United 
States  Senate  must  have  seemed  to  Lincoln  a  most 
brilliant  political  prize,  the  highest,  perhaps,  to 
which  he  then  had  any  hopes  of  ever  attaining. 
To  school  himself  to  its  loss  with  becoming  resig- 
nation, to  wait  hopefully  during  four  years  for  an- 
other opportunity,  to  engage  in  the  dangerous  and 
difficult  task  of  persuading  his  friends  to  leave 
their  old  and  join  a  new  political  party  only  yet 
dimly  foreshadowed,  to  watch  the  chances  of  main- 
taining his  party  leadership,  furnished  sufficient 
occupation  for  the  leisure  afforded  by  the  neces- 
sities of  his  law  practice.  It  is  interesting  to  know 
that  he  did  more;  that  amid  the  consideration  of 
mere  personal  interests  he  was  vigilantly  pursuing 
the  study  of  the  higher  phases  of  the  great  moral 
and  political  struggle  on  which  the  nation  was  just 
entering,  little  dreaming,  however,  of  the  part  he 
was  destined  to  act  in  it.  A  letter  of  his  written 
to  a  friend  in  Kentucky  in  the  following  year 
shows  us  that  he  had  nearly  reached  a  maturity  of 
conviction  on  the  nature  of  the  slavery  conflict  — 
his  belief  that  the  nation  could  not  permanently 
endure  half  slave  and  half  free  —  which  he  did  not 
publicly  express  until  the  beginning  of  his  famous 
senatorial  campaign  of  1858 : 


LINCOLN    AND    TRUMBULL  391 

Springfield,  Ills.,  August  15, 1855.      chap.xxi. 
Hon.  Geo.  Robertson,  Lexington,  Ky. 

My  Dear  Sir  :  The  volume  you  left  for  me  has  been 
received.  I  am  really  grateful  for  the  honor  of  your  kind 
remembrance,  as  well  as  for  the  book.  The  partial  read- 
ing I  have  already  given  it  has  afforded  me  much  of 
both  pleasure  and  instruction.  It  was  new  to  me  that  ms. 
the  exact  question  which  led  to  the  Missouri  Compromise 
had  arisen  before  it  arose  in  regard  to  Missouri,  and  that 
you  had  taken  so  prominent  a  part  in  it.  Your  short  but 
able  and  patriotic  speech  on  that  occasion  has  not  been 
improved  upon  since  by  those  holding  the  same  views ; 
and,  with  all  the  lights  you  then  had,  the  views  you  took 
appear  to  me  as  very  reasonable. 

You  are  not  a  friend  of  slavery  in  the  abstract.  In 
that  speech  you  spoke  of  "the  peaceful  extinction  of 
slavery "  and  used  other  expressions  indicating  your  be- 
lief that  the  thing  was,  at  some  time,  to  have  an  end. 
Since  then  we  have  had  thirty-six  years  of  experience ; 
and  this  experience  has  demonstrated,  I  think,  that  there 
is  no  peaceful  extinction  of  slavery  in  prospect  for  us. 
The  signal  failure  of  Henry  Clay  and  other  good  and 
great  men,  in  1849,  to  effect  anything  in  favor  of  gradual 
emancipation  in  Kentucky,  together  with  a  thousand 
other  signs,  extinguishes  that  hope  utterly.  On  the 
question  of  liberty,  as  a  principle,  we  are  not  what  we 
have  been.  When  we  were  the  political  slaves  of  King 
George,  and  wanted  to  be  free,  we  called  the  maxim  that 
*'all  men  are  created  equal"  a  seK-evident  truth;  but 
now  when  we  have  grown  fat,  and  have  lost  all  dread  of 
being  slaves  ourselves,  we  have  become  so  greedy  to  be 
masters  that  we  call  the  same  maxim  "  a  self-evident  lie." 
The  Fourth  of  July  has  not  quite  dwindled  away ;  it  is 
stUl  a  great  day  for  burning  fire-crackers ! 

That  spirit  which  desired  the  peaceful  extinction  of 
slavery  has  itself  become  extinct  with  the  occasion  and 
the  men  of  the  Revolution.  Under  the  impulse  of  that 
occasion,  nearly  half  the  States  adopted  systems  of 
emancipation  at  once ;  and  it  is  a  significant  fact  that  not 
a  single  State  has  done  the  like  since.  So  far  as  peace- 
ful, voluntary  emancipation  is  concerned,  the  condition 


392  ABEAHAM    LINCOLN 

Chap.  XXI.  of  the  negro  slave  iu  America,  scarcely  less  terrible  to  the 
contemplation  of  a  free  mind,  is  now  as  fixed  and  hope- 
less of  change  for  the  better  as  that  of  the  lost  souls  of 
the  finally  impenitent.  The  Autocrat  of  all  the  Russias 
will  resign  his  crown  and  proclaim  his  subjects  free 
republicans,  sooner  than  will  our  American  masters 
voluntarily  give  up  their  slaves. 

Our  political  problem  now  is,  "  Can  we  as  a  nation  con- 
tinue together  permanently  —  forever  —  half  slave,  and 
half  free?"  The  problem  is  too  mighty  for  me.  May 
God  in  his  mercy  superintend  the  solution.  Your  much 
obliged  friend,  and  humble  servant, 

A.  Lincoln. 

The  reader  has  doubtless  already  noted  in  his 
mind  the  curious  historical  coincidence  which  so 
soon  followed  the  foregoing  speculative  affirmation. 
On  the  day  before  Lincoln's  first  inaugui'ation  as 
President  of  the  United  States,  the  "  Autocrat  of 
all  the  Russias,"  Alexander  IL,  by  imperial  decree 
emancipated  his  serfs;  while  six  weeks  after  the 
inauguration,  the  "  American  masters,"  headed 
by  Jefferson  Davis,  began  the  greatest  war  of 
modern  times,  to  perpetuate  and  spread  the  insti- 
tution of  slavery. 


CHAPTEE    XXII 


THE    BORDER    RUFFIANS 


THE  passage   of  the    Nebraska    bill  and    the  ch.  xxii. 
hurried  extinction  of  the  Indian  title  opened     May  30, 

1854. 

nearly  fifteen  million  acres  of  public  lands  to 
settlement  and  purchase.  The  whole  of  this 
vast  area  was  yet  practically  tenantless.  In  all  of 
Kansas  there  were  only  three  military  posts,  eight 
or  ten  missions  or  schools  attached  to  Indian  res- 
ervations, and  some  scores  of  roving  hunters  and 
traders  or  squatters  in  the  vicinity  of  a  few  well- 
known  camping  stations  on  the  two  principal 
emigrant  and  trading  routes,  one  leading  south- 
ward to  New  Mexico,  the  other  northward  towards 
Oregon.  But  such  had  been  the  interest  created 
by  the  political  excitement,  and  so  favorable  were 
the  newspaper  reports  of  the  location,  soil,  and 
climate  of  the  new  country,  that  a  few  months 
sufficed  to  change  Kansas  from  a  closed  and 
prohibited  Indian  reserve  to  the  emigrant's  land 
of  promise. 

Douglas's  oracular  "  stump  speech "  in  the  Ne- 
braska bill  transferred  the  struggle  for  slavery 
extension  from  Congress  to  the  newly  organized 
territories.  "  Come  on,  then,  gentlemen  of  the 
slave  States,"  said  Seward  in  a  Senate  discussion ; 


394  ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

ch.  XXII.  "  since  there  is  no  escaping  your  challenge,  I  accept 
it  in  behalf  of  Freedom.  We  will  engage  in  com- 
petition for  the  virgin  soil  of  Kansas,  and  God  give 
the  victory  to  the  side  that  is  stronger  in  numbers 
as  it  is  in  right."  With  fifteen  millions  in  the  North 
against  ten  millions  in  the  South,  the  result  could 
not  be  in  doubt. 

Feeling  secure  in  this  evident  advantage,  the 
North,  in  general,  trusted  to  the  ordinary  and 
natural  movement  of  emigration.  To  the  rule, 
however,  there  were  a  few  exceptions.  Some 
members  of  Congress,  incensed  at  the  tactics  of 
the  Nebraska  leaders,  formed  a  Kansas  Aid  Society 
in  Washington  City  and  contributed  money  to  assist 
emigrants.^  Beyond  this  initiatory  step  they  do  not 
seem  to  have  had  any  personal  participation  in  it, 
and  its  oflSce  and  working  operations  were  soon 
transferred  to  New  York.  Sundry  similar  organiza- 
tions were  also  formed  by  private  individuals.  The 
most  notable  of  these  was  a  Boston  company  char- 
1854.  tered  in  April,  named  "  The  Massachusetts  Emigrant 
Aid  Company."  The  charter  was  soon  abandoned, 
and  the  company  reorganized  June  13th,  under  pri- 
vate articles  of  association ;  ^  and  in  this  condition  it 
became  virtually  the  working  agency  of  philan- 
thropic citizens  of  New  England,  headed  by  Eli 
Thayer.  There  were  several  auxiliary  societies 
and  a  few  independent  associations.  But  from 
what  then  and  afterwards  came  to  light,  it  appears 
that  Mr.  Thayer's  society  was  the  only  one  whose 

1  Testimony  of  the  Hon.  Daniel  braska,"  p.  229.  It  was  once  more 
Mace,  page  829,  House  Report  incorporatedFebruary  21, 1855, 
No.  200,  1st  Session,  34th  Con-  under  the  name  of  "  The  New 
gress.     "  Howard  Report."  England    Emigrant    Aid     Com- 

2  E.  E.  Hale,  "Kansas  and  Ne-  pany." 


THE    BOEDER    EUFFIANS  395 

operations  reached  any  degi-ee  of  success  deserving  ch.  xxii. 
historical  notice. 

This  company  gave  publicity,  through  newspaper 
advertisements  and  pamphlets,  of  its  willingness  to 
organize  emigrants  into  companies,  to  send  them 
to  Kansas  in  charge  of  trustworthy  agents,  and  to 
obtain  transportation  for  them  at  reduced  rates.  It 
also  sent  machinery  for  a  few  saw-mills,  the  types 
and  presses  for  two  or  three  newspapers,  and  erected 
a  hotel  or  boarding-house  to  accommodate  new- 
comers. It  purchased  and  held  only  the  land 
necessary  to  locate  these  business  enterprises.  It 
engaged  in  no  speculation,  paid  no  fare  of  any 
emigi-ants,  and  expressly  disavowed  the  require- 
ment of  any  oath  or  pledge  of  political  sentiment 
or  conduct.  All  these  transactions  were  open, 
honest,  and  lawful,  carefully  avoiding  even  the 
implication  of  moral  or  political  wrong. 

Under  the  auspices  of  this  society  a  pioneer  com- 
pany of  about  thirty  persons  arrived  in  Kansas  in 
July,  1854,  and  founded  the  town  of  Lawrence. 
Other  parties  followed  from  time  to  time,  sending 
out  off-shoots,  but  mainly  increasing  the  parent 
settlement,  until  next  to  Fort  Leavenworth,  the 
principal  military  post,  Lawrence  became  the  lead- 
ing town  of  the  Territory.  The  erection  of  the 
society  hotel,  the  society  saw-mills,  and  the  estab- 
lishment of  a  newspaper  also  gave  it  leadership  in 
business  and  politics  as  well  as  population.  This 
humane  and  praiseworthy  enterprise  has  been 
gravely  charged  with  the  origin  and  responsibility 
of  the  political  disorders  which  followed  in  Kansas. 
Nothing  could  be  further  from  the  truth.  Before 
it  had  assisted  five  hundred  persons  to  their  new 


396  ABEAHAM    LINCOLN 

ch.  XXII.  homes,  the  Territory  had  by  regular  and  individual 
immigration,  mainly  from  the  Western  States,  ac- 
quired a  population  of  8601  souls,  as  disclosed  by 
the  official  census  taken  after  the  first  summer's 
arrivals,  and  before  those  of  the  second  had  begun. 
It  needs  only  this  statement  to  refute  the  political 
slander  so  industriously  repeated  in  high  places 
against  the  Lawrence  immigrants. 

Deeper  causes  than  the  philanthropy  or  zeal  of 
a  few  Boston  enthusiasts  were  actively  at  work. 
The  balance  of  power  between  the  free  and  slave 
States  had  been  destroyed  by  the  admission  of  Cali- 
fornia. To  restore  that  balance  the  South  had  con- 
summated the  repeal  of  the  Missouri  Compromise 
as  a  first  and  indispensable  step.  The  second 
equally  indispensable  step  was  to  seize  the  political 
control  of  the  new  Territory. 

Kansas  lay  directly  west  of  the  State  of  Missouri. 
For  a  frontier  State,  the  pro-slavery  sentiment  of 
Missouri  was  very  pronounced,  especially  along  the 
Kansas  border.  The  establishment  of  slavery  in 
this  new  region  had  formed  the  subject  of  public 
and  local  discussion  before  the  Nebraska  bill,  and 
Senator  Atchison  had  promised  his  western  Mis- 
souri constituents  to  labor  for  such  a  result.  From 
the  time  the  unlooked-for  course  of  Senator  Doug- 
las made  it  a  practical  possibility,  Atchison  was 
all  zeal  and  devotion  to  this  object,  which  he  de- 
clared was  almost  as  dear  to  him  as  his  hope  of 
heaven.  When  it  finally  became  a  question  to  be 
decided  perhaps  by  a  single  frontier  election,  his 
zeal  and  work  in  that  behalf  were  many  times 
multiplied. 

Current  reports  and   subsequent  developments 


THE    BOEDER    RUFFIANS  397 

leave  no  doubt  that  this  Senator,  being  then  acting  ch.  xxii. 
Vice-President  of  the  United  States,^  immediately 
after  the  August  adjournment  of  Congress  hurried 
away  to  his  home  in  Platte  County,  Missouri,  and 
from  that  favorable  situation  personally  organized 
a  vast  conspiracy,  running  through  nearly  all  the 
counties  of  his  State  adjoining  the  Kansas  border,  to 
decide  the  slavery  question  for  Kansas  by  Missouri 
votes.  Secret  societies  under  various  names,  such  as 
"  Blue  Lodges,"  "Friends'  Society,"  "  Social  Band," 
"  Sons  of  the  South,"  were  organized  and  affiliated, 
with  all  the  necessary  machinery  of  oaths,  grips, 
signs,  pass-words,  and  badges.  The  plan  and  ob- 
ject of  the  movement  were  in  general  kept  well 
concealed.  Such  publicity  as  could  not  be  avoided 
served  rather  to  fan  the  excitement,  strengthen 
the  hesitating,  and  frown  down  all  dissent  and 
opposition.  Long  before  the  time  for  action  ar- 
rived, the  idea  that  Kansas  must  be  a  slave  State 
had  grown  into  a  fixed  and  determined  public 
sentiment. 

The  fact  is  not  singular  if  we  remember  the  pe- 
culiar situation  of  that  locality.  It  was  before  the 
great  expansion  of  railroads,  and  western  Missouri 
could  only  be  conveniently  approached  by  the  sin- 
gle commercial  link  of  steamboat  travel  on  the 
turbid  and  dangerous  Missouri  River.  Covering 
the  rich  alluvial  lands  along  the  majestic  but 
erratic  stream  lay  the  heavy  slave  counties  of  the 
State,  wealthy  from  the  valuable  slave  products  of 
hemp  and  tobacco.  Slave  tenure  and  slavery  tra- 
ditions in  Missouri  dated  back  a  full  centmy,  to  the 

1  By  virtue  of  his  office  as  Pres-  dency  was  vacant ;  William  R. 
ident  pro  tempwe  of  the  United  King,  chosen  with  President 
States  Senate.      The  Vice-Presi-    Pierce,  had  died. 


398  ABEAHAM   LINCOLN 

ch.  XXII.  remote  days  when  the  American  Bottom  opposite 
St.  Louis  was  one  of  the  chief  bread  and  meat  pro- 
ducing settlements  of  New  France,  sending  supplies 
northward  to  Mackinaw,  southward  to  New  Orleans, 
and  eastward  to  Fort  Duquesne.  When  in  1763 
"  the  Illinois  "  country  passed  by  treaty  under  the 
British  flag,  the  old  French  colonists,  with  their 
slaves,  almost  in  a  body  crossed  the  Mississippi 
into  then  Spanish  territory,  and  with  fresh  addi- 
tions from  New  Orleans  founded  St.  Louis  and  its 
outlying  settlements ;  and  these,  growing  with  a 
steady  thrift,  extended  themselves  up  the  Missouri 
Eiver. 

Slavery  was  thus  identified  with  the  whole  his- 
tory and  also  with  the  apparent  prosperity  of  the 
State;  and  it  had  in  recent  times  made  many  of 
these  Western  counties  rich.  The  free  State  of 
Iowa  lay  a  hundred  miles  to  the  north,  and  the 
free  State  of  Illinois  two  hundred  to  the  east;  a 
wall  of  Indian  tribes  guarded  the  west.  Should  all 
this  security  be  swept  away,  and  their  runaways 
find  a  free  route  to  Canada  by  simply  crossing  the 
county  line  ?  Should  the  price  of  their  personal 
"  chattels  "  fall  one-half  for  want  of  a  new  market  I 
With  nearly  fifteen  million  acres  of  fresh  land  to 
choose  from  for  the  present  outlay  of  a  trifling 
preemption  fee,  should  not  the  poor  white  compel 
his  single  "  black  boy "  to  follow  him  a  few  miles 
west,  and  hoe  his  tobacco  for  him  on  the  new  fat 
bottom-lands  of  the  Kaw  Eiver  ? 

Even  such  off-hand  reasoning  was  probably  con- 
fined to  the  more  intelligent.  For  the  greater  part 
these  ignorant  but  stubborn  and  strong-willed 
frontiersmen  were  moved  by  a  bitter  hatred  of 


THE    BORDER    RUFFIANS  399 

"  abolitionism,"  because  the  word  had  now  been  ch.  xxii. 
used  for  half  a  century  by  partisans  high  and 
low  — Grovernors,  Senators,  Presidents  —  as  a  term 
of  opprobrium  and  a  synonym  of  crime.  "With 
these  as  fathers  of  the  faith  and  the  Vice-Pres- 
ident of  the  United  States  as  an  apostle  to  preach 
a  new  crusade,  is  it  astonishing  that  there  was 
no  lack  of  listeners,  converts,  and  volunteers? 
Senator  Atchison  spoke  in  no  ambiguous  words. 
"When  you  reside  in  one  day's  journey  of  the 
Territory,"  said  he,  "  and  when  your  peace,  your 
quiet,  and  your  property  depend  upon  your  action, 
you  can  without  an  exertion  send  five  hundred 
of  your  young  men  who  will  vote  in  favor  of 
your  institutions.  Should  each  county  in  the 
State  of  Missouri  only  do  its  duty,  the  question 
will  be  decided  quietly  and  peaceably  at  the  ballot- 
box.  If  we  are  defeated,  then  Missouri  and  the  speech  la 
other  Southern  States  will  have  shown  themselves  ^yV^" ^^^^ii. 
recreant  to  their  interests  and  will  deserve  their  "^u'est'^oT 

fate."  Kans^a«."p. 

Western  water  transportation  found  its  natural 
terminus  where  the  Kaw  or  Kansas  River  empties 
into  the  Missouri.  From  this  circumstance  that 
locality  had  for  years  been  the  starting-point 
for  the  overland  caravans  or  wagon-trains.  Fort 
Leavenworth  was  the  point  of  rendezvous  for  those 
going  to  California  and  Oregon;  Independence 
the  place  of  outfit  for  those  destined  to  Santa  Fe. 
Grouped  about  these  two  points  were  haK  a  dozen 
heavy  slaveholding  counties  of  Missouri, —  Platte, 
Clay,  Ray,  Jackson,  Lafayette,  Saline,  and  others. 
Platte  County,  the  home  of  Senator  Atchison,  was 
their  Western  outpost,  and  lay  like  an  outspread 


400  ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

ch.  XXII.  fan  in  tlie  great  bend  of  the  Missouri,  commanding 
from  thirty  to  fifty  miles  of  river  front.  Nearly  all 
of  Kansas  attainable  by  the  usual  water  trans- 
portation and  travel  lay  immediately  opposite.  A 
glance  at  the  map  will  show  how  easily  local 
sentiment  could  influence  or  dominate  commerce 
and  travel  on  the  Missouri  Eiver.  In  this  connec- 
tion the  character  of  the  population  must  be  taken 
into  account. 

The  spirit  of  intolerance  which  once  pervaded 
all  slaveholding  communities,  in  whatever  State  of 
the  Union,  was  here  rampant  to  an  unusual  degree. 
The  rural  inhabitants  were  marked  by  the  strong 
characteristics  of  the  frontier, — fondness  of  adven- 
ture, recklessness  of  exposure  or  danger  to  life,  a 
boastful  assertion  of  personal  right,  privilege,  or 
prowess,  a  daily  and  hourly  familiarity  with  the 
use  of  fire-arms.  These  again  were  heightened  by 
two  special  influences  —  the  presence  of  Indian 
tribes  whose  reservations  lay  just  across  the 
border,  and  the  advent  and  preparation  of  each 
summer's  emigration  across  the  great  plains. 

The  "  Argonauts  of  '49 "  were  not  all  gamblers 
and  cut-throats  of  border  song  and  story.  Grener- 
ally,  however,  they  were  men  of  decision  and  will, 
all  mere  drift-wood  in  the  great  current  of  gold- 
seekers  being  soon  washed  ashore  and  left  behind. 
Until  they  finished  their  last  dinner  at  the  Planter's 
House  in  St.  Louis,  the  fledgelings  of  cities,  the 
lawyers,  doctors,  merchants,  and  speculators,  were 
in  or  of  civilization.  Perhaps  they  even  resisted 
the  contamination  of  cards  and  drink,  profanity 
and  revolver  salutations,  while  the  gilded  and 
tinseled  Missouri  River  steamboat  bore  them  for 


DAVID    R.    ATCHISON. 


THE  imm 


THE    BORDER    RUFFIANS  401 

three  days  against  its  muddy  current  and  boiling  ch.  xxii. 
eddies  to  meet  their  company  and  their  outfit. 

But  once  landed  at  Independence  or  Leaven- 
worth, they  were  of  the  frontier,  of  the  wilderness, 
of  the  desert.  Here  they  donned  their  garments  of 
red  flannel  and  coarse  cloth  or  buckskin,  thrust  the 
legs  of  their  trousers  inside  the  tops  of  their  heavy 
boots,  and  wore  their  bowie-knife  or  revolver  in 
their  outside  belt.  From  this  departure  all  were 
subject  to  the  inexorable  equality  of  the  camp. 
Eating,  sleeping,  standing  guard,  tugging  at  the 
wheel  or  defending  life  and  property, — there  was 
no  rank  between  captain  and  cook,  employer  and 
employed,  savant  and  ignoramus,  but  the  distribu- 
tion of  duty  and  the  assignment  of  responsibility. 
Toil  and  exposure,  hunger  and  thirst,  wind  and 
storm,  danger  in  camp  quarrel  or  Indian  ambush, 
were  the  familiar  and  ordinary  vicissitudes  of  a 
three  months'  journey  in  a  caravan  of  the  plains. 

All  this  movement  created  business  for  these 
Missouri  River  towns.  Their  few  inhabitants 
drove  a  brisk  trade  in  shirts  and  blankets,  guns 
and  powder,  hard  bread  and  bacon,  wagons  and 
live  stock.  Petty  commerce  busies  itself  with  the 
art  of  gain  rather  than  with  the  labor  of  reform. 
Indian  and  emigrant  traders  did  not  too  closely 
scan  their  sources  of  profit.  The  precepts  of  the 
divine  and  the  penalties  of  the  human  law  sat 
lightly  upon  them.  As  yet  many  of  these  frontier 
towns  were  small  hamlets,  without  even  a  pretext 
of  police  regulations.  Passion,  therefore,  ran  com- 
paratively a  free  course,  and  the  personal  redress 
of  private  wrongs  was  only  held  in  check  by  the 
broad  and  acknowledged  right  of  self-defense. 
Vol.  I.—  26 


402  ABKAHAM    LINCOLN 

ch.  XXII.  Since  1849  and  1850,  when  the  gold  fever  was 
at  its  height,  emigration  across  the  plains  had 
slackened,  and  the  eagerness  for  a  revival  of  this 
local  traffic  undoubtedly  exerted  its  influence  in 
procuring  the  opening  of  the  territories  in  1854. 
The  noise  and  excitement  created  by  the  passage 
of  the  Kansas-Nebraska  Act  awakened  the  hope  of 
frontier  traders  and  speculators,  who  now  greedily 
watched  all  the  budding  chances  of  gain.  Under 
such  circumstances  these  opportunities  to  the 
shrewd,  to  the  bold,  and  especially  to  the  unscru- 
pulous, are  many.  Cheap  lands,  unlimited  town 
lots,  eligible  trading  sites,  the  multitude  of  fran- 
chises and  privileges  within  the  control  of  a  ter- 
ritorial legislature,  the  offices  to  be  distributed 
under  party  favoritism,  offer  an  abundant  lure  to 
enterprise  and  far  more  to  craft. 

It  was  to  such  a  population  and  under  such  a 
condition  of  things  that  Senator  Atchison  went  to 
his  home  in  Platte  County  in  the  summer  of  1854 
to  preach  his  pro-slavery  crusade  against  Kansas. 
His  personal  convictions,  his  party  faith,  his  sena- 
torial reelection,  and  his  financial  fortunes,  were 
all  involved  in  the  scheme.  With  the  help  of 
the  Stringfellows  and  other  zealous  co-workers, 
the  town  of  Atchison  was  founded  and  named  in 
his  honor,  and  the  "  Squatter  Sovereign "  news- 
paper established,  which  displayed  his  name  as  a 
candidate  for  the  presidency.  The  good- will  of  the 
Administration  was  manifested  by  making  one  of 
the  editors  postmaster  at  the  new  town. 

President  Pierce  appointed  as  Governor  of  Kan- 
sas Territory  Andrew  H.  Reeder,  a  member  of  his 
own  party,  from  the  free  State  of  Pennsylvania. 


THE    BORDER    RUFFIANS  403 

He  had  neither  prominent  reputation  nor  conspicu-  ch.  xxn. 
ous  ability,  though  under  trying  circumstances  he 
afterwards  showed  diUgence,  judgment,  integrity, 
and  more  than  ordinary  firmness  and  independ- 
ence. It  is  to  be  presumed  that  his  fitness  in  a 
partisan  light  had  been  thoroughly  scrutinized  by 
both  President  and  Senate.  Upon  the  vital  point 
the  investigation  was  deemed  conclusive.  "He 
was  appointed,"  the  "  Washington  Union  "  naively 
stated  when  the  matter  was  first  called  in  question, 
"  under  the  strongest  assurance  that  he  was  strictly 
and  honestly  a  national  man.  We  are  able  to  state 
further,  on  very  reliable  authority,  that  whilst 
Governor  Reeder  was  in  Washington,  at  the  time 
of  his  appointment,  he  conversed  with  Southern 
gentlemen  on  the  subject  of  slavery,  and  assured 
them  that  he  had  no  more  scruples  in  buying  a 
slave  than  a  horse,  and  regretted  that  he  had  not 
money  to  purchase  a  number  to  carry  with  him  to 
Kansas."  With  him  were  appointed  three  Federal 
judges,  a  secretary,  a  marshal,  and  an  attorney 
for  the  Territory,  all  doubtless  considered  equally 
trustworthy  on  the  slavery  question.  The  organic 
act  invested  the  governor  with  very  comprehen- 
sive powers  to  initiate  the  organization  of  the  new 
Territory.  Until  the  first  legislature  should  be 
duly  constituted,  he  had  authority  to  fix  election 
days,  define  election  districts,  direct  the  mode  of 
returns,  take  a  census,  locate  the  temporary  seat  of 
government,  declare  vacancies,  order  new  elections 
to  fill  them,  besides  the  usual  and  permanent 
powers  of  an  executive. 

Arriving  at  Leavenworth  in  October,  1854,  Gov- 
ernor Reeder   was   not  long  in   discovering    the 


404  ABKAHAM    LINCOLN 

ch.  XXII.  designs  of  tlie  Missomians.  He  was  urged  to 
Ex-Gov-  order  the  immediate  election  of  a  territorial  legis- 
rSf's  lature.  The  conspirators  had  aheady  spent  some 
'^'*Howard'  months  in  organizing  their  "Blue  Lodges,"  and 
pp.  933-935.  now  desired  at  once  to  control  the  political  power 
of  the  Territory.  But  the  Governor  had  too  much 
manliness  to  become  the  mere  pliant  tool  they 
wished  to  make  him.  He  resented  their  dictation ; 
he  made  a  tour  of  inspection  through  the  new 
settlements;  and,  acting  on  his  own  judgment, 
on  his  return  issued  a  proclamation  for  a  simple 
election  of  a  delegate  to  Congress.  At  the  appear- 
ance of  this  proclamation  Platte  County  took 
alarm,  and  held  a  meeting  on  the  Kansas  side  of 
the  river,  to  intimidate  him  with  violent  speeches 
and  a  significant  memorial.  The  Grovernor  retorted 
in  a  letter  that  the  meeting  was  composed  of  Mis- 
sourians,  and  that  he  should  resist  outside  inter- 
ference from  friend,  foe,  or  faction.^  Pocketing 
this  rebuff  as  best  they  might,  Senator  Atchison 
and  his  "  Blue  Lodges  "  nevertheless  held  fast  to 
their  purpose.  Paper  proclamations  and  lectures 
on  abstract  rights  counted  little  against  the  prac- 
tical measures  they  had  matured.  November  29th, 
the  day  of  election  for  delegate,  finally  arrived,  and 
with  it  a  formidable  invasion  of  Missouri  voters 
at  more  than  half  the  polling  places  appointed  in 
the  Grovernor's  proclamation. 

In  frontier  life  it  was  an  every-day  experience  to 
make  excursions  for  business  or  pleasure,  singly  or 
in  parties,  requiring  two  or  three  consecutive  days, 
perhaps  a  night  or  two  of  camping  out,  for  which 

1  Governor  Eeeder  to  Gwiner  and  others,  Nov.  21,  1854;  copied 
into  "National  Era,"  Jan.  4,  1855. 


THE    BORDER    RUFFIANS  405 

saddle-horses  and  farm-wagons  furnished  ready  ch.  xxii. 
transportation;  and  nothing  was  more  common 
than  concerted  neighborhood  efforts  for  improve- 
ment, protection,  or  amusement.  On  such  occa- 
sions neighborly  sentiment  and  comity  required 
every  man  to  drop  his  axe,  or  unhitch  from  the 
plow  in  the  furrow,  to  further  the  real  or  imagi- 
nary weal  of  the  community.  In  urgent  instances 
non-compliance  was  fatal  to  the  peace  and  com- 
fort and  sometimes  to  the  personal  safety  of  the 
settler.  The  movement  described  above  had  been 
in  active  preparation  for  weeks,  controlled  by  strong 
and  secret  combinations,  and  many  unwilling  par- 
ticipants were  doubtless  swept  into  it  by  an  excited 
public  opinion  they  dared  not  resist. 

A  day  or  two  before  the  election  the  whole  Mis- 
souri border  was  astir.  Horses  were  saddled,  teams 
harnessed,  wagons  loaded  with  tents,  forage,  and 
provisions,  bowie-knives  buckled  on,  revolvers  and 
rifles  loaded,  and  flags  and  inscriptions  flung  to  the 
breeze  by  the  more  demonstrative  and  daring. 
Crossing  the  river-ferries  from  the  upper  counties, 
and  passing  unobstructed  over  the  State  line  by 
the  prairie-roads  and  trails  from  the  lower,  many 
of  them  camped  that  night  at  the  nearest  polls, 
while  others  pushed  on  fifty  or  a  hundred  miles  to 
the  sparsely  settled  election  districts  of  the  inte- 
rior. As  they  passed  along,  the  more  scrupulous 
went  through  the  empty  form  of  an  imaginary 
settlement,  by  nailing  a  card  to  a  tree,  driving  a 
stake  into  the  ground,  or  inscribing  their  names  in 
a  claim  register,  prepared  in  haste  by  the  invading 
party.  The  indifferent  satisfied  themselves  with 
mere   mental   resolves  to  become  settlers.      The 


1864. 


406  ABBAHAM    LINCOLN 

ch.  XXII.   utterly  reckless  silenced  all  scruples  in  profanity 

and  drunkenness. 
Nov.  29,  On  election  morning  the  few  real  squatters  of 
Kansas,  endowed  with  Douglas's  delusive  boon  of 
"popular  sovereignty,"  witnessed  with  mixed  indig- 
nation and  terror  acts  of  summary  usurpation. 
Judges  of  election  were  dispossessed  and  set  aside 
by  intimidation  or  stratagem,  and  pro-slavery 
judges  substituted  without  the  slightest  regard  to 
regularity  or  law  ;  judges'  and  voters'  oaths  were 
declared  unnecessary,  or  explained  away  upon 
newly-invented  phrases  and  absurd  subtleties. 
"  Where  there  's  a  will,  there  's  a  way,"  in  wrong 
and  crime,  as  well  as  in  honest  purpose  and  deed ; 
and  by  more  dishonest  devices  than  we  can  stop 
fully  to  record  the  ballot-boxes  were  filled,  through 
invasion,  false  swearing,  riot,  and  usurpation,  with 
ballots  for  Whitfield,  the  pro-slavery  candidate  for 
delegate  to  Congress,  at  nine  out  of  the  seventeen 
polling  places  —  showing,  upon  a  careful  scrutiny 
afterwards  made  by  a  committee  of  Congress,  an 
aggregate  of  1729  illegal  votes,  and  only  1114  legal 
ones. 

This  mockery  of  an  election  completed,  the  val- 
iant Knights  of  the  Blue  Lodge,  the  fraternal  mem- 
bers of  the  Social  Band,  the  philanthropic  gi'oups 
of  the  Friends'  Society,  and  the  chivalric  Sons  of 
the  South  returned  to  their  axe  and  plow,  society 
lodge  and  bar-room  haunt,  to  exult  in  a  victory  for 
Missouri  and  slavery  over  the  "Abolition  hordes 
and  nigger  thieves  of  the  Emigrant  Aid  Society." 
The  "Border  Ruffians"  of  Missouri  had  written 
their  preliminary  chapter  in  the  annals  of  Kansas. 
The  published   statements  of  the  Emigrant  Aid 


THE    BORDER    RUFFIANS  407 

Society  show  that  up  to  the  date  of  election  it  had  ch.  xxii. 
sent  only  a  few  hundred  men,  women,  and  chil- 
dren to  the  Territory.  Why  such  a  prodigious 
effort  was  deemed  necessary  to  overcome  the  votes 
and  influence  of  this  paltry  handful  of  "  paupers 
who  had  sold  themselves  to  Eli  Thayer  and  Co." 
was  never  explained. 


CHAPTER    XXIII 


THE    BOGUS    LAWS 


ch.xxiti.  as  the  event  proved,  the  invasion  of  border 
Xjl.  ruffians  to  decide  the  first  election  in  Kan- 
sas had  been  entirely  unnecessary.  Even  without 
counting  the  illegal  votes,  the  pro-slavery  candi- 
date for  delegate  was  chosen  by  a  plurality.  He 
had  held  the  office  of  Indian  Agent,  and  his 
acquaintance,  experience,  and  the  principal  fact 
that  he  was  the  favorite  of  the  conspirators  gave 
him  an  easy  victory.  Governor  Reeder  issued  his 
certificate  of  election  without  delay,  and  Whitfield 
hurried  away  to  Washington  to  enjoy  his  new 
honors,  taking  his  seat  in  the  House  of  Repre- 
sentatives within  three  weeks  after  his  election. 
Atchison,  however,  did  not  follow  his  example. 
Congress  met  on  the  first  Monday  of  December, 
and  the  services  of  the  Acting  Vice-President  were 
needed  in  the  Senate  Chamber.  But  of  such  im- 
portance did  he  deem  the  success  of  the  conspiracy 
in  which  he  was  the  leader,  that  a  few  weeks 
before  the  session  he  wrote  a  short  letter  to  the 
Senate,  giving  notice  of  his  probable  absence  and 
advising  the  appointment  of  a  new  presiding 
officer. 

As   a  necessary  preliminary  to   organizing  the 

408 


THE    BOGUS    LAWS  409 

government  of  the   Territory,   Governor  Reeder,  ch.  xxm. 
under  the  authority  of  the  organic  act,  proceeded     Reeder 
to   take   a  census  of  its  inhabitants.     This  work,   ^HowaM^' 
carried  on  and  completed  in  the  months  of  Janu-      p.  934. ' 
ary  and  February,  1855,  disclosed  a  total  popula- 
tion of  8601   souls,  of  whom  2905  were  voters.  -„  toward 

^^  '  Report,  p.  9. 

With  this  enumeration  as  a  definite  guide,  the 
Governor  made  an  apportionment,  established  elec- 
tion districts,  and,  appointing  the  necessary  officers 
to  conduct  it,  fixed  upon  the  30th  of  March,  1855, 
as  the  day  for  electing  the  territorial  legislature. 
Governor  Reeder  had  come  to  Kansas  an  ardent 
Democrat,  a  firm  friend  of  the  Pierce  Administra- 
tion, and  an  enthusiastic  disciple  of  the  new  Demo- 
cratic dogma  of  "  Popular  Sovereignty."  But  his 
short  experience  with  Atchison's  Border  Ruffians 
had  already  rudely  shaken  his  partisanship.  The 
events  of  the  November  election  exposed  the  de- 
signs of  the  pro-slavery  conspiracy,  and  no  course 
was  left  him  but  to  become  either  its  ally  or  its 
enemy. 

In  behalf  of  justice,  as  well  as  to  preserve  what 
he  still  fondly  cherished  as  a  vital  party  principle, 
he  determined  by  every  means  in  his  power  to 
secure  a  fair  election.    In  his  appointment  of  elec- 
tion officers,  census-takers,  justices  of  the  peace,  and 
constables,  he  was  careful  to  make  his  selections 
from  both  factions  as  fairly  as  possible,  excepting 
that,  as  a  greater  and  necessary  safeguard  against 
another  invasion,  he  designated  in  the  several  elec- 
tion districts  along  the  Missouri  border  two  "  free-   Reeder  in- 
State"  men  and  one  pro-slavery  man  to  act  as   ^Howard*' 
judges  at  each  poll.    He  prescribed  distinct  and  pp.  107,935. 
rigid  rules  for  the  conduct  of  the  election  j  order- 


410 


ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 


ch.  XXIII.  ing  among  other  things  that  the  judges  should  be 
sworn,  that  constables  should  attend  and  preserve 
order,  and  that  voters  must  be  actual  residents  to 
the  exclusion  of  any  other  home. 

All  his  precautions  came  to  nought.  This  elec- 
tion of  a  territorial  legislature,  which,  as  then 
popularly  believed,  might  determine  by  the  enact- 
ment of  laws  whether  Kansas  should  become  a  free 
or  a  slave  State,  was  precisely  the  coveted  oppor- 
tunity for  which  the  Border  Euffian  conspiracy 
had  been  organized.  Its  interference  in  the  No- 
vember election  served  as  a  practical  experiment 
to  demonstrate  its  efficiency  and  to  perfect  its 
plans.  The  alleged  doings  of  the  Emigrant  Aid 
Societies  furnished  a  convenient  and  plausible  pre- 
text; extravagant  rumors  were  now  circulated  as 
to  the  plans  and  numbers  of  the  Eastern  emigrants ; 
it  was  industriously  reported  that  they  were  coming 
twenty  thousand  strong  to  control  the  election; 
and  by  these  misrepresentations  the  whole  border 
was  wrought  up  into  the  fervor  of  a  pro-slavery 
crusade. 

When  the  30th  of  March,  election  day,  finally 
arrived,  the  conspiracy  had  once  more  mustered  its 
organized  army  of  invasion,  and  five  thousand 
Missouri  Border  Ruffians,  in  different  camps,  bands, 
and  squads,  held  practical  possession  of  nearly 
every  election  district  in  the  Territory.  Eiot,  vio- 
lence, intimidation,  destruction  of  ballot-boxes, 
expulsion  and  substitution  of  judges,  neglect  or 
refusal  to  administer  the  prescribed  oaths,  viva  voce 
voting,  repeated  voting  on  one  side,  and  obstruc- 
tion and  dispersion  of  voters  on  the  other,  were 
common  incidents;    no   one   dared  to  resist  the 


1865. 


Howard 

Report, 

pp.  9  to  44 


THE    BOGUS    LAWS 


411 


Howard 

Report, 

p.  30. 


acts  of  the  invaders,  since  they  were  armed  and  ch.xxiii. 
commanded  in  frontier  if  not  in  military  fashion, 
in  many  cases  by  men  whose  names  then  or  after- 
wards were  prominent  or  notorious.  Of  the  votes 
cast,  1410  were  upon  a  subsequent  examination 
found  to  have  been  legal,  while  4908  were  illegal. 
Of  the  total  number,  5427  votes  were  given  to  the 
pro-slavery  and  only  791  to  the  free- State  candi- 
dates. Upon  a  careful  collation  of  evidence  the 
investigating  committee  of  Congress  was  of  the 
opinion  that  the  vote  would  have  returned  a  free- 
State  legislature  if  the  election  had  been  conjS.ned 
to  the  actual  settlers  ;  as  conducted,  however,  it 
showed  a  nominal  majority  for  every  pro-slavery  ibid.,p,  34. 
candidate  but  one. 

Governor  Reeder  had  feared  a  repetition  of  the 
November  frauds ;  but  it  is  evident  that  he  had  no 
conception  of  so  extensive  an  invasion.  It  is  prob- 
able, too,  that  information  of  its  full  enormity  did 
not  immediately  reach  him.  Meanwhile  the  five 
days  prescribed  in  his  proclamation  for  receiving 
notices  of  contest  elapsed.  The  Oovernor  had 
removed  his  executive  office  to  Shawnee  Mission. 
At  this  place,  and  at  the  neighboring  town  of 
Westport,  Missouri,  only  four  miles  distant,  a 
majority  of  the  persons  claiming  to  have  been 
elected  now  assembled  and  became  clamorous  for 
their  certificates.^  A  committee  of  their  number 
presented  a  formal  written  demand  for  the  same ; 
they  strenuously  denied  his  right  to  question  the 
legality  of  the  election,  and  threats  against  the 
Governor's  life  in  case  of  his  refusal  to  issue  them 


1  Testimony  of  Ex-Governor  Reeder,  Howard  Report,  pp.  935-9; 
also  Stringfellow's  testimony,  p.  355. 


412  ABEAHAM    LINCOLN 

ch.  XXIII.  became  alarmingly  frequent.  Their  regular  con- 
sultations, their  open  denunciations,  and  their 
hints  at  violence,  while  they  did  not  entirely  over- 
awe the  Governor,  so  far  produced  their  intended 
effect  upon  him  that  he  assembled  a  band  of  his 
personal  friends  for  his  own  protection.  On  the 
6th  of  April,  one  week  after  election,  the  Grovernor 
announced  his  decision  upon  the  returns.  On  one 
side  of  the  room  were  himself  and  his  armed  adher- 
ents ;  on  the  other  side  the  would-be  members  in 
superior  numbers,  with  their  pistols  and  bowie- 
knives.  Under  this  virtual  duress  the  Governor 
issued  certificates  of  election  to  all  but  about  one- 
third  of  the  claimants ;  and  the  returns  in  these 
cases  he  rejected,  not  because  of  alleged  force  or 
fraud,  but  on  account  of  palpable  defects  in  the 
papers.^ 

The  issue  of  certificates  was  a  fatal  error  in  Gov- 
ernor Reeder's  action.  It  endowed  the  notoriously 
illegal  Legislatui'e  with  a  technical  authority,  and  a 
few  weeks  later,  when  he  went  to  Washington  city 

1  Namely,  because  of  a  vivd  and  the  same  candidates  voted 
voce  vote  certified  instead  of  a  for. —  Howard  Report,  pp.  35- 
■ballot,  and  because  the  prescribed  36.  Indeed,  the  Border  Ruffian 
oath  and  the  words  "  lawful  resi-  habit  of  voting  in  Kansas  had 
dent  voters "  had  been  openly  become  chronic,  and  did  not 
erased  from  the  printed  forms,  cease  for  some  years,  and  some- 
In  six  districts  the  Governor  times  developed  the  grimmest 
ordered  a  supplementary  election,  humors.  In  the  autumn  of  that 
which  was  duly  held  on  the  22d  same  year  an  election  forcounty- 
of  May  f  ollo\ving.  When  that  day  seat  took  place  in  Leavenworth 
arrived,  the  Border  Ruffians,  pro-  County  by  the  accidental  failure 
claimingthe  election  to  be  illegal,  of  the  Legislature  to  designate 
by  their  default  allowed  free-  one.  Leavenworth  city  aspired 
State  men  to  be  chosen  in  all  the  to  this  honor  and  polled  six  hun- 
districts  except  that  of  Leaven-  dred  votes ;  but  it  had  an  enter- 
worth,  where  the  invasion  and  prising  rival  in  Kickapoo  city, 
tactics  of  the  March  election  were  ten  miles  up  the  river,  and  an- 
repeated  now  for  the  third  time  other,  Delaware  city,  eight  miles 


THE    BOGUS    LAWS  413 

to  invoke  the  help  of  the  Pierce  Administration  ch.  xxiil 
against  the  usurpation,  it  enabled  Attorney-General 
Gushing  (if  current  report  was  true)  to  taunt  him 
with  the  reply :  "  You  state  that  this  Legislature  is 
the  creature  of  force  and  fraud;  which  shall  we 
beUeve — your  official  certificate  under  seal,  or  your 
subsequent  declarations  to  us  in  private  conversa- 
tion?" 

The  question  of  the  certificates  disposed  of,  the 
next  point  of  interest  was  to  determine  at  what 
place  the  Legislature  should  assemble.  Under 
the  organic  act  the  Governor  had  authority  to 
appoint  the  first  meeting,  and  it  soon  became 
known  that  his  mind  was  fixed  upon  the  embryo 
town  of  Pawnee,  adjoining  the  military  post  of 
Fort  Riley,  situated  on  the  Kansas  Eiver,  110  miles 
from  the  Missouri  line.  Against  this  exile,  how- 
ever, Stringfellow  and  his  Border  Ruffian  law- 
makers protested  in  an  energetic  memorial,  asking 
to  be  called  together  at  the  Shawnee  Mission,  sup- 
plemented by  the  private  threat  that  even  if  they 

down  stream.    Both  were  paper  boxes   contained    nine    hundred 

towns  —  "  Cottonwood     towns,"  ballots  (of  which  probably  only 

in  border  slang  —  of  great  expec-  fifty  were  legal)  did  the   steam 

tations  ;  and  both  having  more  whistle   scream  victory !    When 

unscrupulous      enterprise     than  the  *' returning  board "  had  suffi- 

voters,  appealed  to  Platte  County  ciently  weighed  this  complicated 

to  "come   over."     This   was   an  electoral     contest,     it     gravely 

appeal  Platte  County  could  never  decided   that   keeping  the   polls 

resist,    and  accordingly   a   char-  open   for    three    days   was   "an 

tered  ferry-boat   brought  voters  unheard  of  irregularity."     (J.  N. 

all  election  day  from  the  Missouri  Holloway,  "  History  of  Kansas," 

side,  until  the  Kiekapoo  tally-lists  pp.  192-4.)     This  was  exquisite 

scored  850.  Delaware  city,  how-  irony ;    but    a    local    court    on 

ever,   was  not  to  be  thus  easily  appeal   seriously  giving    a  final 

crushed.     She,  too,  not  only  had  verdict  for  Delaware,  the  trans- 

her  chartered  ferry-boat,  but  kept  action  became  n  perennial  bur- 

her  polls  open  for  three  days  in  lesque     on     "  Squatter     Sover- 

succession,    and    not    until    her  eignty." 


414  ABKAHAM    LINCOLN 

ch,  XXIII.  convened  at  Pawnee,  they  would  adjourn  and  come 
back  the  day  after.  If  the  Governor  harbored  any 
remaining  doubt  that  this  bogus  Legislature  in- 
tended to  assume  and  maintain  the  mastery,  it 
speedily  vanished.  Their  hostility  grew  open  and 
defiant ;  they  classed  him  as  a  free-State  man,  an 
"  abolitionist,"  and  it  became  only  too  evident  that 
he  would  gradually  be  shorn  of  power  and  degraded 
from  the  position  of  Territorial  Executive  to  that  of 
a  mere  puppet.  Having  nothing  to  gain  by  further 
concession,  he  adhered  to  his  original  plan,  issued 
'^^Ss."'  his  proclamation  convening  the  Legislatm*e  at  Paw- 
nee on  the  first  Monday  in  July,  and  immediately 
started  for  Washington  to  make  a  direct  appeal  to 
President  Pierce. 

How  Governor  Eeeder  failed  in  this  last  hope 
of  redress  and  support,  how  he  found  the  Kansas 
conspiracy  as  strong  at  Washington  as  on  the  Mis- 
souri border,  will  appear  further  along.  On  the 
2d  of  July  the  Governor  and  the  Legislature 
met  at  the  town  of  Pawnee,  where  he  had  con- 
voked them  —  a  magnificent  prairie  site,  but  con- 
taining as  yet  only  three  buildings,  one  to  hold 
sessions  in,  and  two  to  furnish  food  and  lodging. 
The  Governor's  friends  declared  the  accommoda- 
tions ample;  the  Missourians  on  the  contrary  made 
affidavit  that  they  were  compelled  to  camp  out  and 
cook  their  own  rations.  The  actual  facts  had  little 
to  do  with  the  predetermination  of  the  members. 
Stringfellow  had  written  in  his  paper,  the  "  Squat- 
ter Sovereign,"  three  weeks  before :  "  We  hope  no 
one  will  be  silly  enough  to  suppose  the  Governor 
has  power  to  compel  us  to  stay  at  Pawnee  during 
the   entire   session.    We  will,  of  course,  have  to 


THE    BOGUS    LAWS 


415 


*  trot '  out  at  the  bidding  of  his  Excellency, —  but 
we  will  trot  him  back  next  day  at  our  bidding." 

The  prediction  was  literally  fulfilled.  Both 
branches  organized  without  delay,  the  House 
choosing  John  H.  Stringfellow  for  Speaker.  Before 
the  Grovernor's  message  was  delivered  on  the  fol- 
lowing day,  the  House  had  already  passed,  under 
suspended  rules,  "An  act  to  remove  the  seat  of 
government  temporarily  to  the  Shawnee  Manual 
Labor  School,"  which  act  the  Council  as  promptly 
concurred  in.  The  Governor  vetoed  the  bill,  but  it 
was  at  once  passed  over  his  veto.  By  the  end  of 
the  week  the  Legislature  had  departed  from  the 
budding  capital  to  return  no  more. 

The  G-overnor  was  perforce  obliged  to  follow  his 
migratory  Solons,  who  adhered  to  their  purpose 
despite  his  public  or  private  protests,  and  who  re- 
assembled at  Shawnee  Mission,  or  more  correctly 
the  Shawnee  Manual  Labor  School,  on  the  16th  of 
July.  Shawnee  Mission  was  one  of  our  many 
national  experiments  in  civilizing  Indian  tribes. 
This  philanthropic  institution,  nourished  by  the 
Federal  treasury,  was  presided  over  by  the  Rev. 
Thomas  Johnson.  The  town  of  Westport,  which 
could  boast  of  a  post-office,  lay  only  four  miles  to 
the  eastward,  on  the  Missouri  side  of  the  State  line, 
and  was  a  noted  pro-slavery  stronghold.  There 
were  several  large  brick  buildings  at  the  Mission 
capable  of  accommodating  the  Legislature  with  halls 
and  lodging-rooms ;  its  nearness  to  an  established 
post-office,  and  its  contiguity  to  Missouri  pro- 
slavery  sentiment  were  elements  probably  not  lost 
sight  of.  Mr.  Johnson,  who  had  formerly  been  a 
Missouri  slaveholder,  was  at  the  March  election 


Ch.  XXIII. 

"  Squatter 
Soverelffn," 
June  6, 1855. 


"  House 

Jouraal 

Kansas 

Territory," 

1855,  p.  12. 

"Jouraal  of 
Council, 
Kansas 

Territory," 
p.  12. 

"  House 

Journal 

Kansas 

Territory," 

1855, p.  29. 

Ibid,  p.  30. 


41G 


ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 


Ch.  xxni. 


"  Squatter 
Sovereign," 
July  17, 1855. 


Ibid,  June 

19,  1855. 


"  House 

Journal 

Kansas 

Territory," 

1856,  p.  12. 


chosen  a  member  of  the  Territorial  Council,  which 
in  due  time  made  him  its  presiding  officer;  and  the 
bogus  Legislature  at  Shawnee  Mission  was  there- 
fore in  a  certain  sense  under  its  own  "  vine  and 
fig-tree." 

The  two  branches  of  the  Legislature,  the  Council 
with  the  Eev.  Thomas  Johnson  as  President,  and 
the  House  with  Stringfellow  of  the  "  Squatter 
Sovereign  "  as  Speaker,  now  turned  their  attention 
seriously  to  the  pro-slavery  work  before  them. 
The  conspirators  were  shrewd  enough  to  realize 
their  victory.  "  To  have  intimated  one  year  ago," 
said  the  Speaker  in  his  address  of  thanks,  "  that 
such  a  result  would  be  wrought  out,  one  would  have 
been  thought  a  visionary ;  to  have  predicted  that 
to-day  a  legislature  would  assemble,  almost  unani- 
mously pro-slavery,  and  with  myself  for  Speaker, 
I  would  have  been  thought  mad."  The  programme 
had  already  been  announced  in  the  "  Squatter 
Sovereign  "  some  weeks  before.  "  The  South  must 
and  will  prevail.  If  the  Southern  people  but  half 
do  their  duty,  in  less  than  nine  months  from  this 
day  Kansas  will  have  formed  a  constitution  and 
be  knocking  at  the  door  for  admission.  .  .  In  the 
session  of  the  United  States  Senate  in  1856,  two 
Senators  from  the  slave-holding  State  of  Kansas 
will  take  theii*  seats,  and  abolitionism  will  be  for- 
ever driven  from  our  halls  of  legislation."  Against 
this  triumphant  attitude  Governor  Reeder  was 
despondent  and  powerless.  The  language  of  his 
message  plainly  betrayed  the  political  dilemma 
in  which  he  found  himself.  He  strove  as  best  he 
might  to  couple  together  the  prevailing  cant  of 
office-holders  against    "the   destructive   spirit  of 


\. 


ANDREW    H.   REEDER. 


IKE  U'^^AHY 

OF  Tr^ 


THE    BOGUS    LAWS 


417 


"  House 
Journal 
Kansas 
Territory," 
1855.    Ap- 
pendix, 
p.  10. 


abolitionism"  and  a  comparatively  mild  rebuke  of  ch.xxiii. 
the  Missouri  usurpation.^ 

Nevertheless,  the  Governor  stood  reasonably 
firm.  He  persisted  in  declaring  that  the  Legisla- 
ture could  pass  no  valid  laws  at  any  other  place 
than  Pawnee,  and  returned  the  first  bill  sent  him 
with  a  veto  message  to  that  effect.  To  this  the 
Legislature  replied  by  passing  the  bill  over  his  veto, 
and  in  addition  formally  raising  a  joint  committee 
"  to  draw  up  a  memorial  to  the  President  of  the 
United  States  respectfully  demanding  the  removal 
of  A.  H.  Reeder  from  the  office  of  governor  " ;  and, 
as  if  this  indignity  were  not  enough,  holding  a 
joint  session  for  publicly  signing  it.  The  memorial 
was  promptly  dispatched  to  Washington  by  special 
messenger;  but  on  the  way  this  envoy  read  the 
news  of  the  Governor's  dismissal  by  the  President. 

This  event  appeared  definitely  to  sweep  away  the 
last  obstacle  in  the  path  of  the  conspirators.  The 
office  of  acting  governor  now  devolved  upon  the 
secretary  of  the  Territory,  Daniel  Woodson,  a  man 
who  shared  their  views  and  was  allied  to  their 
schemes.  With  him  to  approve  their  enactments, 
the  parliamentary  machinery  of  the  "  bogus  "  Legis- 
lature was  complete  and  effective.  They  had  at 
the  very  beginning  summarily  ousted  the  free- 
State    members    chosen     at    the    supplementary 


1  Its  phraseology  was  adroit 
enough  to  call  forth  a  sneering 
compliment  from  Speaker  String- 
fellow,  who  wrote  to  the  "Squat- 
ter Sovereign":  "On  Tuesday 
the  Governor  sent  in  his  message, 
which  you  will  find  is  very  well 
calculated  to  have  its  effect  with 
the  Pennsylvania  Democracy.   If 

Vol.  I.—  27 


he  was  trustworthy  I  would  be 
disposed  to  compliment  the  most 
of  it,  but  knowing  how  corrupt 
the  author  is,  and  that  it  is  only 
designed  for  political  effect  in 
Pennsylvania,  he  not  expecting 
to  remain  long  with  us,  I  will 
pass  it  by." — "Squatter  Sover- 
eign," July  17,  1855. 


418  ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

CH.xxni.  election  on  May  22,  and  seated  the  pro-slavery 
claimants  of  March  30 ;  and  the  only  two  remain- 
ing free-State  members  resigned  in  utter  disgust 
to  avoid  giving  countenance  to  the  flagrant  usurpa- 
tion by  their  presence.  No  one  was  left  even  to 
enter  a  protest. 

This,  then,  was  the  perfect  flower  of  Douglas's 
vaunted  experiment  of  "  popular  sovereignty  " —  a 
result  they  professed  fully  to  appreciate.   "  Hither- 
Report     to,"  said  the  Judiciary  Committee  of  the  House  in 
„com.^^     a  long  and  grandiloquent  report,  "  Congress  have 
KaS^     retained  to  themselves   the  power  to  mold  and 
Sss!*  Ap-"  shape  all  the  territorial  governments  according  to 
^p°  u*'     their  own  peculiar  notions,  and  to  restrict  within 
very  limited    and    contracted    bounds    both   the 
natural  as  well  as  the  political  rights  of  the  bold  and 
daring  pioneer  and  the  noble,  hard-fisted  squatter." 
But  by  this  course,  the  argument  of  the  committee 
continued,  "  the  pillars  which  uphold  this  glorious 
union  of  States  were  shaken  until  the  whole  world 
was  threatened  with  a  political  earthquake,"  and, 
"  the  principle  that  the  people  are  capable  of  self- 
government  would  have  been  forever  swallowed  up 
by  anarchy  and  confusion,"  had  not  the  Kansas- 
Nebraska  bill  "  delegated  to  the  people  of  these 
territories  the  right  to  frame  and  establish  their 
own  form  of  government." 

What  might  not  be  expected  of  law-makers  who 
begin  with  so  ambitious  an  exordium,  and  who  lay 
the  corner-stone  of  their  edifice  upon  the  solid  rock 
of  political  principle?  The  anti-climax  of  perform- 
ance which  followed  would  be  laughably  absurd, 
were  it  not  marked  by  the  cunning  of  a  well- 
matured  political  plot.    Their  first  step  was  to 


THE    BOGUS    LAWS 


419 


recommend  the  repeal  of  "all  laws  whatsoever, 
which  may  have  been  considered  to  have  been  in 
force  "  in  the  Territory  on  the  1st  day  of  July,  1855, 
thus  forever  quieting  any  doubt  "  as  to  what  is  and 
what  is  not  law  in  this  Territory  " ;  secondly,  to 
substitute  a  code  about  which  there  should  be  no 
question,  by  the  equally  ingenious  expedient  of 
copying  and  adopting  the  Revised  Statutes  of 
Missouri. 

These  enactments  were  made  in  due  form ;  but 
the  bogus  Legislature  did  not  seem  content  to  let 
its  fame  rest  on  this  single  monument  of  self-gov- 
ernment. Casting  their  eyes  once  more  upon  the 
broad  expanse  of  American  politics,  the  Judiciary 
Committee  reported  ;  "  The  question  of  slavery  is 
one  that  convulses  the  whole  country,  from  the 
boisterous  Atlantic  to  the  shores  of  the  mild 
Pacific.  This  state  of  things  has  been  brought 
about  by  the  fanaticism  of  the  North  and  East, 
while  up  to  this  time  the  people  of  the  South,  and 
those  of  the  North  who  desire  the  perpetuation  of 
this  Union  and  are  devoted  to  the  laws,  have  been 
entirely  conservative.  But  the  time  is  coming — 
yea,  it  has  already  arrived  —  for  the  latter  to  take 
a  bold  and  decided  stand  that  the  Union  and  law 
may  not  be  trampled  in  the  dust,"  etc.,  etc. 

The  "Revised  Statutes  of  Missouri,"  recom- 
mended in  bulk,  and  adopted  with  hasty  clerical 
modifications,^  already  contained  the  usual  slave- 


1  To  guard  more  effectually 
against  clerical  errors,  the  Legis- 
lature enacted  :  "  Sec.  1. 
Wherever  the  word  'State'  oc- 
curs in  any  act  of  the  present 
legislative  assembly,  or  any  law  of 
this  Territory,  in  such  construc- 


tion as  to  indicate  the  locality  of 
the  operation  of  such  act  or  laws, 
the  same  shall  in  every  instance 
be  taken  and  understood  to  mean 
'  Territory,'  and  shall  apply  to 
the  Territory  of  Kansas." — "  Stat- 
utes of  Kansas,"  1855,  p.  718. 


Ch.  XXIII. 

Report 
Judiciary 
Com., 
"  House 
Journal 
Kansas 
Territory," 
1855.    Ap- 
pendix, 
p.  18. 


Ibid.,  p.  18. 


Ibid.,  p.  IC 


420  ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

ch.  XXIII.  code  peculiar  to  Southern  States.  But  in  the  plans 
and  hopes  of  the  conspirators,  this  of  itself  was  in- 
sufficient. In  order  to  "  take  a  bold  stand  that  the 
Union  and  law  might  not  be  trampled  in  the  dust," 
TerrS?  they  with  great  painstaking  devised  and  passed 
"sK.Ts.'  "  an  act  to  punish  offenses  against  slave  property." 
It  prescribed  the  penalty  of  death,  not  merely 
for  the  grave  crime  of  inciting  or  aiding  an  insur- 
rection of  slaves,  free  negi'oes,  or  mulattoes,  or 
circulating  printed  matter  for  such  an  object,  but 
also  the  same  extreme  punishment  for  the  com- 
paratively mild  offense  of  enticing  or  decoying 
away  a  slave  or  assisting  him  to  escape ;  for  har- 
boring or  concealing  a  fugitive  slave,  ten  years' 
imprisonment ;  for  resisting  an  officer  arresting  a 
fugitive  slave,  two  years'  imprisonment. 

If  such  inflictions  as  the  foregoing  might  per- 
haps be  tolerated  upon  the  plea  that  a  barbarous 
institution  required  barbarous  safeguards,  what 
ought  to  be  said  of  the  last  three  sections  of  the 
act  which,  in  contempt  of  the  Declaration  of  Inde- 
pendence and  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States, 
annulled  the  freedom  of  speech  and  the  freedom  of 
the  press,  and  invaded  even  the  right  of  individual 
conscience  I 

To  write,  print,  or  circulate  "  any  statements, 
arguments,  opinions,  sentiment,  doctrine,  advice, 
or  innuendo,  calculated  to  produce  a  disorderly, 
dangerous,  or  rebellious  disaffection  among  the 
slaves  of  the  Territory,  or  to  induce  such  slaves  to 
escape  from  the  service  of  their  masters,  or  to 
resist  their  authority,"  was  pronounced  a  felony 
punishable  by  five  years'  imprisonment.  To  deny 
the  right  of  holding  slaves  in  the  Territory,  by 


THE    BOGUS    LAWS 


421 


speaking,  writing,  printing,  or  circulating  books, 
or  papers,  was  likewise  made  a  felony,  punishable 
by  two  years'  imprisonment.  Finally  it  was  enacted 
that  "  no  person  who  is  conscientiously  opposed  to 
holding  slaves,  or  who  does  not  admit  the  right 
to  hold  slaves  in  this  Territory,  shall  sit  as  a  juror 
on  the  trial  of  any  prosecution  for  any  violation  of 
any  of  the  sections  of  this  act."  Also,  all  ofi&cers 
were,  in  addition  to  their  usual  oath,  required  to 
swear  to  support  and  sustain  the  Kansas-Nebraska 
Act  and  the  Fugitive-Slave  Law. 

The  spirit  which  produced  these  despotic  laws 
also  governed  the  methods  devised  to  enforce  them. 
The  Legislature  proceeded  to  elect  the  principal 
officers  of  each  county,  who  in  turn  were  empow- 
ered by  the  laws  to  appoint  the  subordinate  officials. 
All  administration,  therefore,  emanated  from  that 
body,  reflected  its  will,  and  followed  its  behest. 
Finally,  the  usual  skeleton  organization  of  a  terri- 
torial militia  was  devised,  whose  general  officers 
were  in  due  time  appointed  by  the  acting  Governor 
from  prominent  and  serviceable  pro-slavery  mem- 
bers of  the  Legislature. 

Having  secured  their  present  domination,  they 
sought  to  perpetuate  their  political  ascendency  in 
the  Territory.  They  ingeniously  prolonged  the 
tenure  of  their  various  appointees,  and  to  render 
their  success  at  future  elections  easy  and  certain 
they  provided  that  candidates  to  be  eligible,  and 
judges  of  election,  and  voters  when  challenged, 
must  swear  to  support  the  Fugitive- Slave  Law. 
This  they  knew  would  virtually  disfranchise  many 
conscientious  antislavery  men  ;  while,  on  the  other 
hand,  they  enacted  that  each  inhabitant  who  had 


Ch.  XXIII. 


"  statutes 

Territory 

of  Kansas," 

1856,  p.  S16. 


"  Journal 
of  Council 

Kansa!^ 
Territory," 
1865,  p.  218. 


"Statutes 

Territory 

of  Kansas," 

1855,  p.  332. 


422  ABKAHAM    LINCOLN 

ch.  XXIII.  paid  his  territorial  tax  should  be  a  qualified  voter 
for  all  elective  officers.  Under  so  lax  a  provision 
Missouri  invaders  could  in  the  future,  as  they  had 
in  the  past,  easily  give  an  apparent  majority  at  the 
ballot-box  for  all  their  necessary  agents  and  ulterior 
schemes. 

In  a  technical  sense  the  establishment  of  slavery 
in  Kansas  was  complete.  There  were  by  the  census 
of  the  previous  February  already  some  two  hun- 
dred slaves  in  the  Territory.  Under  the  sanction 
of  these  laws,  and  before  they  could  by  any  pos- 
sibility be  repealed,  some  thousands  might  be  ex- 
pected, especially  by  such  an  organized  and  united 
effort  as  the  South  could  make  to  maintain  the 
vantage  ground  already  gained.  Once  there,  the 
aggi'essiveness  of  the  institution  might  be  relied 
on  to  protect  itself,  since  all  experience  had  shown 
that  under  similar  conditions  it  was  almost  ine- 
radicable. 

After  so  much  patriotic  endeavor  on  the  part  of 
these  Border  Ruffian  legislators  "that  the  Union 
and  law  may  not  be  trampled  in  the  dust,"  it  can- 
not perhaps  be  wondered  at  that  they  began  to 
look  around  for  their  personal  rewards.  These 
they  easily  found  in  the  rich  harvest  of  local 
monopolies  and  franchises  which  lay  scattered  in 
profusion  on  this  virgin  field  of  legislation,  ready 
to  be  seized  and  appropriated  without  dispute  by 
the  first  occupants.  There  were  charters  for  rail- 
roads, insurance  companies,  toll-bridges,  ferries, 
coal-mines,  plank  roads,  and  numberless  privileges 
and  honors  of  present  or  prospective  value  out  of 
which,  together  with  the  county,  district,  and  mili- 
tary offices,  the  ambitious  members  might  give  and 


THE    BOGUS    LAWS  423 

take   with  generous  liberality.     One-sixth  of  the  ch.  xxiii. 
printed  laws  of  the  first  session  attest  their  modest    ^coifax. 

^  Speech  in 

attention  to  this  incidental  squatters'  dowry.  One  ^2i^-i8"^6°® 
of  the  many  favorable  opportunities  in  this  cate- 
gory was  the  establishment  of  the  permanent  ter- 
ritorial capital,  authorized  by  the  organic  act, 
where  the  liberal  Federal  appropriation  for  public 
buildings  should  be  expended.  For  this  purpose, 
competition  from  the  older  towns  yielding  gi-acefully 
after  the  first  ballot,  an  entirely  new  site  on  the 
open  prairie  overlooking  the  Kansas  Eiver  some 
twelve  miles  west  of  Lawrence  was  agi*eed  upon. 
The  proceedings  do  not  show  any  unseemly  scram- 
ble over  the  selection,  and  no  tangible  record 
remains  of  the  whispered  distribution  of  corner 
lots  and  contracts.  It  is  only  the  name  which  rises 
into  historical  notice. 

One  of  the  actors  in  the  political  drama  of  Kan- 
sas was  Samuel  Dexter  Lecompte,  Chief-Justice  of 
the  Territory.  He  had  been  appointed  from  the 
border  State  of  Maryland,  and  is  represented  to 
have  been  a  diligent  student,  a  respectable  lawyer, 
a  prominent  Democratic  politician,  and  possessed 
of  the  personal  instincts  and  demeanor  of  a  gen- 
tleman. Moved  by  a  pro-slavery  sympathy  that 
was  sincere.  Judge  Lecompte  lent  his  high  author- 
ity to  the  interests  of  the  conspiracy  against  Kansas. 
He  had  already  rendered  the  bogus  Legislature  the 
important  service  of  publishing  an  extra-judicial  j^Xi 
opinion,  sustaining  their  adjournment  from  Pawnee  Territory." 
to  Shawnee  Mission.  Probably  because  they  valued  pendix,^?3. 
his  official  championship  and  recognized  in  him  a 
powerful  ally  in  politics,  they  made  him  a  member 
of  several  of  their  private  corporations,  and  gave 


424  ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

ch.  XXIII.  him  the  honor  of  naming  their  newly  founded 
capital  Lecompton.  But  the  intended  distinction 
was  transitory.  Before  the  lapse  of  a  single  decade, 
the  town  for  which  he  stood  sponsor  was  no  longer 
the  capital  of  Kansas. 


CHAPTER    XXIV 


THE    TOPEKA    CONSTITUTION 


THE  bogus  Legislature  adjourned  late  on  the  ch.  xxiv. 
night  of  the  30th  of  August,  1855.  They  had 
elaborately  built  up  their  legal  despotism,  com- 
missioned trusty  adherents  to  administer  it,  and 
provided  their  principal  and  undoubted  partisans 
with  military  authority  to  see  that  it  was  duly  exe- 
cuted. Going  still  a  step  further,  they  proposed  so 
to  mold  and  control  public  opinion  as  to  prevent 
the  organization  of  any  party  or  faction  to  oppose 
their  plans.  In  view  of  the  coming  presidential 
campaign,  it  was  the  fashion  in  the  States  for 
Democrats  to  style  themselves  "National  Demo- 
crats " ;  and  a  few  newspapers  and  speakers  in 
Kansas  had  adopted  the  prevailing  political  name. 
To  stifle  any  such  movement,  both  houses  of  the 
Legislature  on  the  last  night  of  their  session  adopted 
a  concurrent  resolution  declariug  that  the  proposi- 
tion to  organize  a  National  Democratic  party,  hav- 
ing already  misled  some  of  their  friends,  would 
divide  pro-slavery  Whigs  from  Democrats  and 
weaken  their  party  one-half ;  that  it  was  the  duty 
of  the  pro-slavery,  Union-loving  men  of  Kansas 
"  to  know  but  one  issue,  slavery ;  and  that  any 
party  making  or  attempting  to  make  any  other 


426 


426  ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 

ch.xxiv,   is  and  should  be  held  as  an  ally  of  abolitionism 
"House     and  disunion." 

Journal 

tSo"^,"  2^^  ^^®  conspiracy  been  content  to  prosecute  its 
^^^councii'  designs  through  moderate  measures,  it  would  in- 
^85^253.  evitably  have  fastened  slavery  upon  Kansas.  The 
organization  of  the  invasion  in  western  Missouri, 
carried  on  under  pre-acknowledged  leadership,  in 
populous  counties,  among  established  homes,  amid 
well-matured  confidence  growing  out  of  long  per- 
sonal and  political  relationship,  would  have  been 
easy  even  without  the  powerful  bond  of  secret 
association.  On  the  other  hand,  the  union  of  the 
actual  inhabitants  of  Kansas,  scattered  in  sparse 
settlements,  personal  strangers  to  each  other,  com- 
ing from  widely  separated  States,  and  comprising 
radically  different  manners,  sentiments,  and  tradi- 
tions, and  burdened  with  the  prime  and  unyielding 
necessity  of  protecting  themselves  and  their  fam- 
ilies against  cold  and  hunger,  was  in  the  very 
nature  of  the  case  slow  and  difficult.  But  the 
course  of  the  Border  Ruffians  created,  in  less  than 
six  weeks,  a  powerful  and  deteimined  opposition, 
which  became  united  in  support  of  what  is  known 
as  the  Topeka  Constitution. 

It  is  noteworthy  that  this  free-State  movement 
originated  in  Democratic  circles,  under  Democratic 
auspices.  The  Republican  party  did  not  yet  exist. 
The  opponents  of  the  Kansas-Nebraska  Act  were 
distributed  among  Whigs,  Know-Nothings,  and 
Free-soilers  in  the  States,  and  had  no  national 
affiliation,  although  they  had  won  overwhelming 
triumphs  in  a  majority  of  the  Congressional  dis- 
tricts in  the  fall  elections  of  1854.  Nearly  if  not 
quite  all  the  free-State  leaders  originally  went  to 


THE    TOPEKA    CONSTITUTION  427 

Kansas  as  friends   of   President  Pierce,   and  as    ch.xxiv. 
believers  in  the  dogma  of  "  Popular  Sovereignty." 

Now  that  this  usurping  Legislature  had  met, 
contemptuously  expelled  the  free-State  members, 
defied  the  Grovernor's  veto,  set  up  its  ingeniously 
contrived  legal  despotism,  and  commissioned  its 
partisan  followers  to  execute  and  administer  it, 
the  situation  became  sufficiently  grave  to  demand 
defensive  action.  The  real  settlers  were  Demo- 
crats, it  was  true ;  they  had  voted  for  Pierce, 
shouted  for  the  platform  of  '52,  applauded  the 
Kansas-Nebraska  Act,  and  emigrated  to  the  Terri- 
tory to  enjoy  the  new  political  gospel  of  popular 
sovereignty.  But  the  practical  Democratic  beati- 
tudes of  Kansas  were  not  calculated  to  strengthen 
the  saints  or  confirm  them  in  the  faith.  A  Demo- 
cratic invasion  had  elected  a  Democratic  Legisla- 
ture, which  enacted  laws,  under  whose  arbitrary 
"non-intervention"  a  Democratic  court  might 
fasten  a  ball  and  chain  to  their  ankles  if  they 
should  happen  to  read  the  Declaration  of  Inde- 
pendence to  a  negro,  or  carry  Jefferson's  "Notes 
on  Virginia"  in  their  carpet-bags. 

The  official  resolution  which  the  bogus  Legisla- 
ture proclaimed  as  a  final  political  test  left  no  mid- 
dle ground  between  those  who  were  for  slavery 
and  those  who  were  against  slavery  —  those  who 
were  for  the  bogus  laws  in  all  their  enormity,  and 
those  who  were  against  them — and  all  who  were 
not  willing  to  become  active  co-workers  with  the 
conspiracy  were  forced  to  combine  in  self-defense. 

It  was  in  the  town  of  Lawrence  that  the  free- 
State  movement  naturally  found  its  beginning. 
The  settlers  of  the  Emigrant  Aid  Society  were 


428  ABEAHAM    LINCOLN 

ch.  XXIV.  comparatively  few  in  number ;  but,  supported 
by  money,  saw-mills,  printing-presses,  boarding- 
houses,  they  became  from  the  very  first  a  compact, 
self-reliant  governing  force.  A  few  preliminary 
meetings,  instigated  by  the  disfranchised  free-State 
members  of  the  Legislature,  brought  together  a 
large  mass  convention.  The  result  of  its  two  days' 
deliberations  was  a  regularly  chosen  delegate  con- 
vention held  at  Big  Springs,  a  few  miles  west  of 
Lawrence,  on  the  5th  of  September,  1855.  More 
important  than  all,  perhaps,  was  the  presence  and 
active  participation  of  ex-Governor  Reeder  him- 
self, who  wrote  the  resolutions,  addressed  the  con- 
vention in  a  stirring  and  defiant  speech,  and 
received  by  acclamation  their  nomination  for 
territorial  delegate. 

The  platform  adopted  repudiated  in  strong  terms 
the  bogus  Legislature  and  its  tyrannical  enactments, 
and  declared  "  that  we  will  endure  and  submit  to 
these  laws  no  longer  than  the  best  interests  of  the 
Territory  require,  as  the  least  of  two  evils,  and  will 
resist  them  to  a  bloody  issue  as  soon  as  we 
ascertain  that  peaceable  remedies  shall  fail."  It 
also  recommended  the  formation  of  volunteer 
companies  and  the  procurement  of  arms.  The 
progressive  and  radical  spirit  of  the  conven- 
tion is  illustrated  in  its  indorsement  of  the  free- 
State  movement,  against  the  report  of  its  own 
committee. 

The  strongest  point,  however,  made  by  the  con- 
vention was  a  determination,  strictly  adhered  to 
for  more  than  two  years,  to  take  no  part  in  any 
election  under  the  bogus  territorial  laws.  As  a 
result  Whitfield  received,  without  competition,  the 


THE    TOPEKA    CONSTITUTION  429 

combined  pro-slavery  and  Border  Euffian  vote  for  ch.  xxrv. 
delegate  on  the  first  of  October,  a  total  of  2721 
ballots.    Measures  had  meanwhile  been  perfected 
by  the  free-State  men  to  elect  delegates  to  a  con- 
stitutional convention.    On  the  9th  of  October,  at 
a  separate  election,  held  by  the  free-State  party 
alone,  under  self-prescribed  formalities  and  regula-     Howara 
tions,  these  were  duly  chosen  by  an  aggregate  vote    ppfi^ss. 
of  2710,  ex-Grovernor  Reeder  receiving  at  the  same 
polls  2849  votes  for  delegate. 

By  this  series  of  political  movements,  carried 
out  in  quiet  and  orderly  proceedings,  the  free-State 
party  was  not  only  fully  constituted  and  organized, 
but  was  demonstrated  to  possess  a  decided  major- 
ity in  the  Territory.  Still  following  out  the  policy 
agi-eed  upon,  the  delegates  chosen  met  at  Topeka 
on  the  23d  of  October,  and  with  proper  deliberation 
and  decorum  framed  a  State  constitution,  which 
was  in  tm'n  submitted  to  a  vote  of  the  people.  Al- 
though this  election  was  held  near  midwinter 
(Dec.  15,  1855),  and  in  the  midst  of  serious  dis- 
turbances of  the  peace  arising  from  other  causes, 
it  received  an  affirmative  vote  of  1731,  showing  a 
hearty  popular  indorsement  of  it.  Of  the  docu- 
ment itself  no  extended  criticism  is  necessary.  It 
prohibited  slavery,  but  made  reasonable  provision 
for  existing  property-rights  in  slaves  actually  in 
the  Territory.  In  no  sense  a  radical,  subversive, 
or  "  abolition  "  production,  the  Topeka  Constitution 
was  remarkable  only  as  being  the  indignant  protest 
of  the  people  of  the  Territory  against  the  Missouri 
usurpation.^    The  new  constitution  was  transmit- 

1  still    another    election    was    January    15,    1856,    to    choose 
held  by  the  free-State  party  on    State  officers  to  act  under  the 


430 


ABEAHAM    LINCOLN 


ch.  XXIV.  ted  to  Congress  and  was  formally  presented  as  a 
petition  to  the  Senate  by  General  Cass,  on  March 
24,  1856,^  and  to  the  House  some  days  later. 

The  Republican  Senators  in  Congress  (the  Re- 
publican party  had  been  definitely  organized  a  few 
weeks  before  at  Pittsburg)  now  urged  the  imme- 
diate reception  of  the  Topeka  Constitution  and  the 
admission  of  Kansas  as  a  free  State,  citing  the 
cases  of  Michigan,  Arkansas,  Florida,  and  Califor- 
nia as  justifying  precedents.'"^     For  the  present. 


"  Globe," 
March  24, 
1856,  p.  698 


February 
22, 1856. 


new  organization,  at  which 
Charles  Robinson  received  1296 
votes  for  governor,  out  of  a  total 
of  1706,  and  Mark  W.  Delahay 
for  Representative  in  Congress, 
1628.  A  legislature  elected  at 
the  same  time,  met,  according  to 
the  terms  of  the  newly  framed 
constitution,  on  the  4th  of  March, 
organized,  and  elected  Andrew 
H.  Reader  and  James  H.  Lane 
United  States  Senators. 

1  Later,  on  April  7,  General 
Cass  presented  to  the  Senate 
another  petition,  purporting  to  be 
the  Topeka  Constitution,  which 
had  been  handed  him  by  J.  H, 
Lane,  president  of  the  convention 
which  framed  it  and  Senator- 
elect  under  it  ("Cong.  Globe," 
1856,  April  7,  p.  826).  This 
paper  proved  to  be  a  clerk's 
copy,  with  erasures  and  inter- 
lineations and  signatures  in  one 
handwriting,  which  being  ques- 
tioned as  probably  spurious.  Lane 
afterwards  supplied  the  original 
draft  prepared  by  the  committee 
and  adopted  by  the  convention, 
though  without  signatures ;  also 
adding  his  explanatory  aflSdavit 
("Cong.  Globe,"  App.  1856,  pp. 
378-9),  to  the  effect  that,  the 
committee   had    devolved    upon 


him  the  preparation  of  the  form- 
al copy,  but  that  the  original 
signatures  had  been  mislaid. 
The  official  action  of  the  Senate 
appears  to  have  concerned  itself 
exclusively  with  the  copy  pre- 
sented by  General  Cass  on  March 
24.  Lane's  copies  served  only 
as  text  for  angry  debate.  As  the 
Topeka  Constitution  had  no  legal 
origin  or  quality,  technical  de- 
fects were  of  little  consequence, 
especially  in  view  of  the  action 
by  the  free-State  voters  of  Kan- 
sas at  their  voluntary  elections 
for  delegates  on  October  9,  and 
to  ratify  it  on  December  15, 
1856. 

2  They  based  their  appeal  more 
especially  upon  the  opinion  of  the 
Attorney-General  in  the  case  of 
Arkansas,  that  citizens  of  Terri- 
tories possess  the  constitutional 
right  to  assemble  and  petition 
Congress  for  the  redress  of 
grievances ;  that  the  form  of 
the  petition  is  immaterial;  and 
that,  "as  the  power  of  Con- 
gress over  the  whole  subject  is 
plenary,  they  may  accept  any 
constitution,  however  framed, 
which  in  their  judgment  meets 
the  sense  of  the  people  to  be 
affected  by  it." 


THE    TOPEKA    CONSTITUTION  431 

however,  there  was  no  hope  of  admission  to  the  ch.  xxiv. 
Union  with  the  Topeka  Constitution.  The  Pierce 
Administration,  under  the  domination  of  the  South- 
ern States,  had  deposed  Governor  Reeder.  Both 
in  his  annual  message  and  again  in  a  special 
message,  the  President  denounced  the  Topeka 
movement  as  insurrectionary. 

In  the  Senate,  too,  the  application  was  already 
prejudged;  the  Committee  on  Territories  through 
Douglas  himself  as  chairman,  in  a  long  partisan 
report,  dismissed  it  with  the  assertion  "that  it  was 
the  movement  of  a  political  party  instead  of  the 
whole  body  of  the  people  of  Kansas,  conducted 
without  the  sanction  of  law,  and  in  defiance  of  the 
constituted  authorities,  for  the  avowed  purpose  senate  Re- 
of  overthrowing  the  territorial  government  estab-  msSion; 
lished  by  Congress."  In  the  mouth  of  a  consistent  gress,  p""32. 
advocate  of  "  Popular  Sovereignty,"  this  argument 
might  have  had  some  force ;  but  it  came  with  a  bad 
grace  from  Douglas,  who  in  the  same  report 
indorsed  the  bogus  Legislature  and  sustained  the 
bogus  laws  upon  purely  technical  assumptions. 
Congress  was  irreconcilably  divided  in  politics. 
The  Democrats  had  an  overwhelming  majority  in 
the  Senate ;  the  opposition,  through  the  election  of 
Speaker  Banks,  possessed  a  working  control  of  the 
House.  Some  months  later,  after  prolonged  de- 
bate, the  House  passed  a  bill  for  the  admission  of 
Kansas  under  the  Topeka  Constitution;  but  as 
the  Senate  had  already  rejected  it,  the  movement 
remained  without  practical  result.^ 

1  Nevertheless,  the  efforts  of  ren.  The  contest  between  Whit- 
the  free-State  party  under  this  field  and  Reeder  for  a  seat  in  the 
combination  were  not  wholly  bar-    House  as  territorial  delegate  not 


432  ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

ch.  XXIV.  The  staple  argument  against  the  Topeka  free^ 
State  movement,  that  it  was  a  rebellion  against 
constitutional  authority,  though  perhaps  correct  as 
a  mere  theory  was  utterly  refuted  by  the  practical 
facts  of  the  case.  The  Big  Springs  resolutions, 
indeed,  counseled  resistance  to  a  "  bloody  issue  " ; 
but  this  was  only  to  be  made  after  "  peaceable 
remedies  shall  fail."  The  free-State  leaders  deserve 
credit  for  pursuing  their  peaceable  remedies  and 
forbearing  to  exercise  their  asserted  right  to  resist- 
ance with  a  patience  unexampled  in  American 
annals.  The  bogus  territorial  laws  were  defied  by 
the  newspapers  and  treated  as  a  dead  letter  by  the 
mass  of  the  free-State  men ;  as  much  as  possible 
they  stood  aloof  from  the  civil  officers  appointed  by 
and  through  the  bogus  Legislature,  recorded  no  title 
papers,  began  no  lawsuits,  abstained  from  elections, 
and  denied  themselves  privileges  which  required 
any  open  recognition  of  the  alien  Missouri  statutes. 
Lane  and  others  refused  the  test  oath,  and  were 
excluded  from  practice  as  attorneys  in  the  courts ; 
free-State  newspapers  were  thrown  out  of  the 
mails  as  incendiary  publications ;  sundry  petty 
persecutions  were  evaded  or  submitted  to  as 
special  circumstances  dictated.  But  throughout 
their  long  and  persistent  non-conformity,  for  more 
than  two  years,   they  constantly  and  cheerfully 

only  provoked  searching  discus-  printed  pages,  and  which  exposed 

sion,  but  furnished  the  occasion  the  Border  RuflBan  invasions  and 

for  sending  an  investigating  com-  the   Missouri    usurpation  in   all 

mittee  to  Kansas,  attended  by  the  their    monstrous     iniquity,    and 

contestants  in  person.   This  com-  officially    revealed    to    the    as- 

mittee  with  a  fearless  diligence  tounded  North,  for  the  first  time 

collected  in  the  Territory,  as  well  and  nearly  two  years   after  its 

as  from  the  border  counties  of  beginning,  the   full    proportions 

Missouri,  a  mass  of  sworn  testi-  of    the    conspiracy  which    held 

mony  amounting  to  some  1200  sway  in  Kansas. 


JAMES    H.  LANE. 


Or   ^li 


THE    TOPEKA    CONSTITUTION  433 

acknowledged  the  authority  of  the  organic  act,  and  ch.  xxiv. 
of  the  laws  of  Congress,  and  even  counseled  and 
endured  every  forced  submission  to  the  bogus 
laws.  Though  they  had  defiant  and  turbulent 
spirits  in  their  own  ranks,  who  often  accused  them 
of  imbecility  and  cowardice,  they  maintained  a 
steady  policy  of  non-resistance,  and,  under  every 
show  of  Federal  authority  in  support  of  the  bogus 
laws,  they  submitted  to  obnoxious  searches  and 
seizures,  to  capricious  arrest  and  painful  imprison- 
ment, rather  than  by  resistance  to  place  them- 
selves in  the  attitude  of  deliberate  outlaws.^ 

They  were  destined  to  have  no  lack  of  provoca- 
tion. Since  the  removal  of  Reeder,  all  the  Federal 
officials  of  the  Territory  were  affiliated  with  the  pro- 
slavery  Missouri  cabal.  Both  to  secure  the  per- 
manent establishment  of  slavery  in  Kansas,  and 
to  gratify  the  personal  pride  of  their  triumph, 
they  were  determined  to  make  these  recusant  free- 
State  voters  "bow  down  to  the  cap  of  Gessler." 
Despotism  is  never  more  arrogant  than  in  resent- 
ing all  slights  to  its  personal  vanity.  As  a  first 
and  necessary  step,  the  cabal  had  procured,  through 
its  powerful  influence  at  Washington,  a  proclama- 
tion from  the  President  commanding  "  all  persons 
engaged  in  unlawful  combinations  against  the  con-  February 
stituted  authority  of  the  Territory  of  Kansas  or  of  "statutes^ 
the  United  States  to  disperse,"  etc.  The  language  ^^\^'^- 
of  the  proclamation  was  sufficiently  comprehensive 
to  include  Border  Ruffians  and  emigrant  aid 
societies,  as  well  as  the  Topeka  movement,  and 
thus  presented  a  show  of  impartiality ;  but  under 

1  See  Governor  Robinson's  message  to  the  free-State  Legislature, 
March  4,  1856.    Mrs.  S.  T.  L.  Robinson,  "  Kansas,"  pp.  352,  364. 

Vol.  L— 28 


p.  791. 


434  ABEAHAM    LINCOLN 

ch.  XXIV.  dominant  political  influences  the  latter  was  its 
evident  and  certain  object. 

With  this  proclamation  as  a  sort  of  official  ful- 
crum, Chief -Justice  Lecompte  delivered  at  the  May 
term  of  his  court  a  most  extraordinary  charge  to 
the  grand  jury.  He  instructed  them  that  the  bogus 
Legislature,  being  an  instrument  of  Congress,  and 
having  passed  laws,  "these  laws  are  of  United 
States  authority  and  making."  Persons  resisting 
these  laws  must  be  indicted  for  high  treason.  If  no 
resistance  has  been  made,  but  combinations  formed 
for  the  purpose  of  resisting  them,  "  then  must  you 
still  find  bills  for  constructive  treason,  as  the  courts 
have  decided  that  the  blow  need  not  be  struck, 
but  only  the  intention  be  made  evident."  ^  In- 
dictments, writs,  and  the  arrest  of  many  prominent 
free-State  leaders  followed  as  a  matter  of  course. 
All  these  proceedings,  too,  seemed  to  have  been  a 
part  of  the  conspiracy.  Before  the  indictments 
were  found,  and  in  anticipation  of  the  writs,  Robin- 
son, the  free-State  Governor-elect,  then  on  his  way 
to  the  East,  was  arrested  while  traveling  on  a  Mis- 
souri River  steamboat,  at  Lexington  in  that  State, 
detained,  and  finally  sent  back  to  Kansas  under 
the  Governor's  requisition.  Upon  this  frivolous 
charge  of  constructive  treason  he  and  others  were 
held  in  military  custody  nearly  four  months,  and 
finally,  at  the  end  of  that  period,  discharged  upon 
bail,  the  farce  of  longer  imprisonment  having  be- 
come useless  through  other  events. 

Apprehending  fully  that  the  Topeka  movement 

1  J.  H.  Gihon,  "  Governor  dictments,  printed  at  full  length 
Geary's  Administration,"  p.  77;  in  Phillips,  "Conquest  of  Kan- 
also  compare  two  copies  of  in-    sas,"  pp.  351-4. 


THE    TOPEKA    CONSTITUTION  435 

was  the  only  really  serious  obstacle  to  their  success,  ch.  xxrv. 
the  pro-slavery  cabal,  watching  its  opportunity, 
matured  a  still  more  formidable  demonstration  to 
suppress  and  destroy  it.  The  provisional  free- 
State  Legislature  had,  after  organizing  on  the  4th 
of  March,  adjourned,  to  reassemble  on  the  4th  of 
July,  1856,  in  order  to  await  in  the  meantime 
the  result  of  their  application  to  Congress.  As 
the  national  holiday  approached,  it  was  deter- 
mined to  call  together  a  mass  meeting  at  the  same 
time  and  place,  to  give  both  moral  support  and 
personal  protection  to  the  members.  Civil  war,  of 
which  further  mention  will  be  made  in  the  next 
chapter,  had  now  been  raging  for  months,  and  had 
in  its  general  results  gone  against  the  free-State 
men.  Their  leaders  were  imprisoned  or  scattered, 
their  presses  destroyed,  their  adherents  dispirited 
with  defeat.  Nevertheless,  as  the  day  of  meeting 
approached,  the  remnant  of  the  provisional  Legis- 
lature and  some  six  to  eight  hundred  citizens 
gathered  at  Topeka,  though  without  any  definite 
purpose  or  pre-arranged  plan. 

Governor  Shannon,  the  second  of  the  Kansas 
executives,  had  by  this  time  resigned  his  office,  and 
Secretary  Woodson  was  again  acting  Governor. 
Here  was  a  chance  to  put  the  free-State  movement 
pointedly  under  the  ban  of  Federal  authority 
which  the  cabal  determined  not  to  neglect.  Re- 
citing the  President's  proclamation  of  February, 
Secretary  Woodson  now  issued  his  own  proclama- 
tion forbidding  all  persons  claiming  legislative 
power  and  authority  as  aforesaid  from  assembling, 
organizing,  or  acting  in  any  legislative  capacity 
whatever.    At  the  hour  of  noon  on  the  4th  of 


436  ABKAHAM    LINCOLN 

ch.  XXIV.  July  several  companies  of  United  States  dragoons, 
which  were  brought  into  camp  near  town  in 
anticipation  of  the  event,  entered  Topeka  in 
military  array,  under  command  of  Colonel  E.  V. 
Sumner.  A  line  of  battle  was  formed  in  the  street, 
cannon  were  planted,  and  the  machinery  of  war 
prepared  for  instant  action.  Colonel  Sumner,  a 
most  careful  and  conscientious  officer  and  a  free- 
State  man  at  heart,  with  due  formality,  with  de- 
cision and  firmness,  but  at  the  same  time  openly 
expressing  the  painful  nature  of  his  duty,  com- 
manded the  provisional  Legislature,  then  about  to 
assemble,  to  disperse.  The  members,  not  yet 
organized,  immediately  obeyed  the  order,  having 
neither  the  will  nor  the  means  to  resist  it.  There 
was  no  tumult,  no  violence,  but  little  protest  even 
in  words;  but  the  despotic  purpose,  clothed  in 
forms  of  law,  made  a  none  the  less  profound  im- 
pression upon  the  assembled  citizens,  and  later, 
when  the  newspapers  spread  the  report  of  the  act, 
upon  the  indignant  public  of  the  Northern  States. 
From  this  time  onward,  other  events  of  para- 
mount historical  importance  supervene  to  crowd 
the  Topeka  Constitution  out  of  view.  In  a  feeble 
way  the  organization  still  held  together  for  a  con- 
siderable length  of  time.  About  a  year  later  the  pro- 
visional Legislature  again  went  through  the  forms 
of  assembling,  and  although  Governor  Walker  was 
present  in  Topeka,  there  were  no  proclamations, 
no  dragoons,  no  cannon,  because  the  cabal  was  for 
the  moment  defeated  and  disconcerted  and  bent 
upon  other  and  still  more  desperate  schemes.  The 
Topeka  Constitution  was  never  received  nor  legal- 
ized ;  its  officers  never  became  clothed  with  official 


THE    TOPEKA    CONSTITUTION  437 

authority;  its  scrip  was  never  redeemed;  yet  in  ch. xxiv. 
the  fate  of  Kansas  and  in  the  annals  of  the  Union 
at  large  it  was  a  vital  and  pivotal  transaction, 
without  which  the  great  conflict  between  freedom 
and  slavery,  though  perhaps  neither  avoided  nor 
delayed,  might  have  assumed  altogether  different 
phases  of  development. 


CHAPTEE    XXV 


CIVIL    WAR   IN    KANSAS 


ch.  XXV.  /~\ITT  of  the  antagonistic  and  contending  factions 
\-J  mentioned  in  the  last  two  chapters,  the  bogus 
Legislature  and  its  Border-Ruffian  adherents  on  the 
one  hand,  and  the  framers  and  supporters  of  the 
Topeka  Constitution  on  the  other,  grew  the  civil 
war  in  Kansas.  The  bogus  Legislature  numbered 
thirty-six  members.  These  had  only  received,  all 
told,  619  legal  bond  fide  Kansas  votes ;  but,  what 
answered  their  purposes  just  as  well,  4408  Missou- 
rians  had  cast  their  ballots  for  them,  making  their 
total  constituency  (if  by  discarding  the  idea  of  a 
State  line  we  use  the  word  in  a  somewhat  strained 
sense)  5427.  This  was  at  the  March  election,  1855. 
Of  the  remaining  2286  actual  Kansas  voters  dis- 
closed by  Eeeder's  census,  only  791  cast  their 
ballots.  That  summer's  emigration,  however,  be- 
ing mainly  from  the  free  States,  greatly  changed 
the  relative  strength  of  the  two  parties.  At  the 
election  of  October  1,  1855,  in  which  the  free- State 
men  took  no  part,  Whitfield,  for  delegate,  received 
2721  votes.  Border  Ruffians  included.  At  the 
election  for  members  of  the  Topeka  Constitutional 
Convention,  a  week  later,  from  which  the  pro- 
slavery  men   abstained,  the  free-State  men  cast 

488 


CIVIL   WAR   IN    KANSAS  439 

2710  votes,  while  Reeder,  their  nominee  for  dele-  ch.xxv. 
gate,  received  2849.  For  general  service,  there- 
fore, requiring  no  special  effort,  the  numerical 
strength  of  the  factions  was  about  equal ;  while  on 
extraordinary  occasions  the  two  thousand  Border- 
Ruffian  reserve  lying  a  little  farther  back  from  the 
State  line  could  at  any  time  easily  turn  the  scale. 
The  free-State  men  had  only  their  convictions, 
their  intelligence,  their  courage,  and  the  moral 
support  of  the  North  ;  the  conspiracy  had  its  secret 
combination,  the  territorial  officials,  the  Legisla- 
ture, the  bogus  laws,  the  courts,  the  militia  officers, 
the  President,  and  the  army.  This  was  a  formi- 
dable array  of  advantages;  slavery  was  playing 
with  loaded  dice. 

With  such  a  radical  opposition  of  sentiment, 
both  factions  were  on  the  alert  to  seize  every  avail- 
able vantage  ground.  The  bogus  laws  having 
been  enacted,  and  the  free-State  men  having,  at 
the  Big  Springs  Convention,  resolved  on  the  failure 
of  peaceable  remedies  to  resist  them  to  a  "  bloody 
issue,"  the  conspiracy  was  not  slow  to  cover  itself 
and  its  projects  with  the  sacred  mantle  of  au- 
thority. Opportunely  for  them,  about  this  time 
Governor  Shannon,  appointed  to  succeed  Reeder, 
arrived  in  the  Territory.  Coming  by  way  of  the 
Missouri  River  towns,  he  fell  first  among  Border- 
Ruffian  companionship  and  influences ;  and  perhaps 
having  his  inclinations  already  molded  by  his  Wash- 
ington instructions,  his  early  impressions  were  de- 
cidedly adverse  to  the  free-State  cause.  His  recep- 
tion speech  at  Westport,  in  which  he  maintained  the 
legality  of  the  Legislature,  and  his  determination 
to  enforce  their  laws,  delighted  his  pro-slavery 


440  ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

ch.xxv.  auditors.  To  further  enlist  his  zeal  in  their  behalf, 
a  few  weeks  later  they  formally  organized  a  "  law- 
and-order  party  "  by  a  large  public  meeting  held  at 
Leavenworth.  All  the  territorial  dignitaries  were 
present;  Governor  Shannon  presided;  John  Cal- 
houn, the  Surveyor-General,  made  the  principal 
speech,  a  denunciation  of  the  "  abolitionists  "  sup- 
porting the  Topeka  movement ;  Chief -Justice 
Lecompte  dignified  the  occasion  with  approving 
remarks.  With  public  opinion  propitiated  in 
advance,  and  the  Governor  of  the  Territory  thus 
publicly  committed  to  their  party,  the  conspirators 
felt  themselves  ready  to  enter  upon  the  active  cam- 
paign to  crush  out  opposition,  for  which  they  had 
made  such  elaborate  preparations. 

Faithful  to  their  legislative  declaration  they 
knew  but  one  issue,  slavery.  All  dissent,  all  non- 
compliance, all  hesitation,  all  mere  silence  even, 
were  in  their  stronghold  towns,  like  Leavenworth, 
branded  as  "  abolitionism,"  declared  to  be  hostility 
to  the  public  welfare,  and  punished  with  proscrip- 
tion, personal  violence,  expulsion,  and  frequently 
death.  Of  the  lynchings,  the  mobs,  and  the  mur- 
ders, it  would  be  impossible,  except  in  a  very 
extended  work,  to  note  the  frequent  and  atrocious 
details.  The  present  chapters  can  only  touch  upon 
the  more  salient  movements  of  the  civil  war  in 
Kansas,  which  happily  were  not  sanguinary;  if, 
however,  the  individual  and  more  isolated  cases  of 
bloodshed  could  be  described,  they  would  show  a 
startling  aggregate  of  barbarity  and  loss  of  life  for 
opinion's  sake.  Some  of  these  revolting  crimes, 
though  comparatively  few  in  number,  were  com- 
mitted, generally  in  a  spirit  of  lawless  retaliation, 
by  free-State  men. 


CIVIL    WAR    IN    KANSAS  441 

Among  other  instrumentalities  for  executing  the  ch.  xxv. 
bogus  laws,  the  bogus  Legislature  had  appointed 
one  Samuel  J.  Jones  sheriff  of  Douglas  County, 
Kansas  Territory,  although  that  individual  was  at 
the  time  of  his  appointment,  and  long  afterwards, 
United  States  postmaster  of  the  town  of  Westport, 
Missouri.  Why  this  Missouri  citizen  and  Federal 
official  should  in  addition  be  clothed  with  a  foreign 
territorial  shrievalty  of  a  county  lying  forty  or  fifty 
miles  from  his  home  is  a  mystery  which  was  never 
explained  outside  a  Missouri  Blue  Lodge. 

A  few  days  after  the  "  law-and-order "  meeting 
in  Leavenworth,  there  occurred  a  murder  in  a 
small  settlement  thirteen  miles  west  of  the  town 
of  Lawrence.  The  murderer,  a  pro-slavery  man, 
first  fled  to  Missouri,  but  returned  to  Shawnee 
Mission  and  sought  the  official  protection  of  Sheriff 
Jones;  no  warrant,  no  examination,  no  commit- 
ment followed,  and  the  criminal  remained  at  large. 
Out  of  this  incident,  the  officious  sheriff  managed 
most  ingeniously  to  create  an  embroilment  with 
the  town  of  Lawrence.  Buckley,  who  was  alleged 
to  have  been  accessory  to  the  crime,  obtained  a 
peace-warrant  against  Branson,  a  neighbor  of  the 
victim.  With  this  peace-warrant  in  his  pocket, 
but  without  showing  or  reading  it  to  his  prisoner. 
Sheriff  Jones  and  a  posse  of  twenty-five  Border 
Ruffians  proceeded  to  Branson's  house  at  midnight 
and  arrested  him.  Alarm  being  given,  Branson's 
free-State  neighbors,  already  exasperated  at  the 
murder,  rose  under  the  sudden  instinct  of  self-pro- 
tection and  rescued  Branson  from  the  sheriff  and  ^^j  piiji. 
his  posse  that  same  night,  though  without  other  "quest^o"" 
violence  than  harsh  words.  pfili^eueq. 


442  ABKAHAM    LINCOLN 

ch.  XXV.  Burning  with  the  thirst  of  personal  revenge, 
Sheriff  Jones  now  accused  the  town  of  Lawrence 
of  the  violation  of  law  involved  in  this  rescue, 
though  the  people  of  Lawrence  immediately  and 
earnestly  disavowed  the  act.  But  for  Sheriff 
Jones  and  his  superiors  the  pretext  was  all- 
sufficient.  A  Border-Ruffian  foray  against  the 
town  was  hastily  organized.  The  murder  occurred 
November  21;  the  rescue  November  26.  November 
27,  upon  the  brief  report  of  Sheriff  Jones,  demand- 
ing a  force  of  three  thousand  men  "  to  carry 
out  the  laws,"  Governor  Shannon  issued  his  order 
to  the  two  major-generals  of  the  skeleton  militia, 
"  to  collect  together  as  large  a  force  as  you  can  in 
your  division,  and  repair  without  delay  to  Lecomp- 
ton,  and  report  yourself  to  S.  J.  Jones,  sheriff  of 
Douglas  County."  ^  The  Kansas  militia  was  a 
myth;  but  the  Border  Ruffians,  with  their  back- 
woods rifles  and  shot-guns,  were  a  ready  resource. 
To  these  an  urgent  appeal  for  help  was  made ;  and 
the  leaders  of  the  conspiracy  in  prompt  obedience 
placarded  the  frontier  with  inflammatory  hand- 
bills, and  collected  and  equipped  companies,  and 
hurried  them  forward  to  the  rendezvous  without 
a  moment's  delay.  The  United  States  Arsenal  at 
Liberty,  Missouri,  was  broken  into  and  stripped 
of  its  contents  to  supply  cannon,  small  arms,  and 
ammunition.  In  two  days  after  notice  a  company 
of  fifty  Missourians  made  the  first  camp  on  Waka- 
rusa  Creek,  near  Franklin,  four  miles  from  Law- 
rence.   In  three  or  four  days  more  an  irregular 

1  Governor  Shannon,  order  to  date.  Senate  Executive  Docu- 
Richardson,  November  27, 1855.  ments,  3d  Sess.  34th  Cong.,  VoL 
Same    order  to  Strickler,    same    11.,  p.  53. 


CrVTL    WAK    IN    KANSAS  443 

aiTiiy  of  fifteen  hundred  men,  claiming  to  be  the    ch.xxv. 
sheriffs  posse,  was  within  striking  distance  of  the 
town.    Three  or  four  hundred  of  these  were  nom- 
inal residents  of  the  Territory ;  ^  all  the  remainder    shannon, 

*'   '  proclama- 

were  citizens  of  Missouri.     They  were  not  only   yg^^berM, 
well  armed  and  suppKed,  but  wrought  up  to  the   ^^ateE^x^' 
highest  pitch  of  partisan  excitement.    While  the    s^ss.b^h 
Governor's  proclamation  spoke  of  serving  writs,    irfp.  56.' 
the  notices  of  the  conspirators  sounded  the  note  of 
the  real  contest.     "  Now  is  the  time  to  show  game, 
and  if  we  are  defeated  this  time,  the  Territory  is 
lost  to  the  South,"  said  the  leaders.    There  was  no      p.  m ' 
doubt  of  the   earnestness  of  their  purpose.    Ex- 
Vice-President  Atchison  came  in  person,  leading  a 
battalion  of  two  hundred  Platte  County  riflemen. 

News  of  this  proceeding  reached  the  people  of 
Lawi'ence  little  by  little,  and  finally,  becoming 
alarmed,  they  began  to  improvise  means  of  de- 
fense. Two  abortive  imitations  of  the  Missouri 
Blue  Lodges,  set  on  foot  during  the  summer  by 
the  free-State  men,  provoked  by  the  election  inva- 
sion in  March,  furnished  them  a  starting-point  for 
military  organization.  A  committee  of  safety,  hur- 
riedly instituted,  sent  a  call  for  help  from  Law- 
rence to  other  points  in  the  Territory,  "for  the 
purpose  of  defending  it  from  threatened  invasion 
by  armed  men  now  quartered  in  its  vicinity."  Sev- 
eral hundred  free-State  men  promptly  responded  to 
the  summons.  The  Free-State  Hotel  served  as  bar- 
racks. Governor  Robinson  and  Colonel  Lane  were 
appointed  to  command.  Four  or  five  small  re- 
doubts, connected  by  rifle-pits,  were  hastily  thrown 

1  Shannon,  dispatch,  December  11,  1855,  to  President  Pierce. 
Senate  Ex.  Doc,  3d  Sess.  34th  Cong.,  Vol.  II.,  p.  63. 


444  ABKAHAM    LINCOLN 

ch. XXV.  up;  and  by  a  clever  artifice  they  succeeded  in 
bringing  a  twelve-pound  brass  howitzer  from  its 
storage  at  Kansas  City.  Meantime  the  committee 
of  safety,  earnestly  denying  any  wrongful  act  or 
purpose,  sent  an  urgent  appeal  for  protection  to 
the  commander  of  the  United  States  forces  at  Fort 
Leavenworth,  another  to  Congress,  and  a  third  to 
President  Pierce. 

Amid  all  this  warlike  preparation  to  keep  the 
peace,  no  very  strict  mihtary  discipline  could  be 
immediately  enforced.  The  people  of  Lawrence, 
without  any  gi-eat  difficulty,  obtained  daily  infor- 
mation concerning  the  hostile  camps.  They,  on  the 
other  hand,  professing  no  purpose  but  that  of  de- 
fense and  self-protection,  were  obliged  to  permit 
free  and  constant  ingress  to  their  beleaguered  town. 
Sheriff  Jones  made  several  visits  unmolested  on 
their  part,  and  without  any  display  of  wi-its  or 
demand  for  the  surrender  of  alleged  offenders  on 
his  own.  One  of  the  rescuers  even  accosted  him, 
conversed  with  him,  and  invited  him  to  dinner. 
These  free  visits  had  the  good  effect  to  restrain 
imprudence  and  impulsiveness  on  both  sides.  They 
could  see  that  a  conflict  meant  serious  results.  With 
the  advantage  of  its  defensive  position,  Lawrence 
was  as  strong  as  the  sheriff's  mob.  On  one  point 
especially  the  Border  Ruffians  had  a  wholesome 
di-ead.  Yankee  ingenuity  had  invented  a  new  kind 
of  breech-loading  gun  called  "  Sharps  rifle."  It  was, 
in  fact,  the  best  weapon  of  its  day.  The  free-State 
volunteers  had  some  months  before  obtained  a 
partial  supply  of  them  from  the  East,  and  their 
range,  rapidity,  and  effectiveness  had  been  not 
only  duly  set  forth  but   highly  exaggerated   by 


CIVIL    WAK    IN    KANSAS  445 

many  marvelous  stories  throughout  the  Territory  ch.xxv. 
and  along  the  border.  The  Missouri  backwoods- 
men manifested  an  almost  incredible  interest  in 
this  wonderful  gun.  They  might  be  deaf  to  the 
"  equalities "  proclaimed  in  the  Declaration  of  In- 
dependence or  blind  to  the  moral  sin  of  slavery, 
but  they  comprehended  a  rifle  which  could  be  fired 
ten  times  a  minute  and  kill  a  man  at  a  thousand 
yards. 

The  arrivals  from  Missouri  finally  slackened  and 
ceased.  The  irregular  Border-RuflQan  squads  were 
hastily  incorporated  into  the  skeleton  "Kansas 
militia."  The  "  posse  "  became  some  two  thousand 
strong,  and  the  defenders  of  Lawrence  perhaps  one 
thousand. 

Meanwhile  a  sober  second  thought  had  come  to 
Governor  Shannon.  To  retrieve  somewhat  the  pre- 
cipitancy of  his  militia  orders  and  proclamations, 
he  wrote  to  Sheriff  Jones,  December  2,  to  make  no 
arrests  or  movements  unless  by  his  direction.  The 
firm  defensive  attitude  of  the  people  of  Lawrence 
had  produced  its  effect.  The  leaders  of  the  con- 
spiracy became  distrustful  of  their  power  to  crush 
the  town.  One  of  his  militia  generals  suggested 
that  the  Governor  should  require  the  "  outlaws  at  SyS^Simf 
Lawrence  and  elsewhere"  to  surrender  the  Sharps  ^3^1^^.^^ 
rifles;  another  wrote  asking  him  to  call  out  the  ^J.'m^' 
Government  troops  at  Fort  Leavenworth.  The 
Governor,  on  his  part,  becoming  doubtful  of  the 
legality  of  employing  Missouri  militia  to  enforce 
Kansas  laws,  was  also  eager  to  secure  the  help  of 
Federal  troops.  Sheriff  Jones  began  to  grow  im- 
portunate. In  the  Missouri  camp  while  the  leaders 
became  alarmed  the  men  grew  insubordinate.     "  I 


446 


ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 


Ch.  XXV. 


Anderson 
to  Richard- 
son; Phil- 
lips, p.  210. 


Sumner  to 
Shannon, 
December 

1,  1855 ; 

Phillips, 

p.  184. 


have  reason  to  believe,"  wrote  one  of  their  promi- 
nent men,  "that  before  to-morrow  morning  the 
black  flag  will  be  hoisted,  when  nine  out  of  ten 
will  rally  round  it,  and  march  without  orders 
upon  Lawrence.  The  forces  of  the  Lecompton 
camp  fully  understand  the  plot  and  will  fight  under 
the  same  banner." 

After  careful  deliberation  Colonel  Sumner,  com- 
manding the  United  States  troops  at  Fort  Leaven- 
worth, declined  to  interfere  without  explicit  orders 
from  the  War  Department.  These  failing  to  arrive 
in  time,  the  Grovernor  was  obliged  to  face  his  own 
dilemma.  He  hastened  to  Lawrence,  which  now 
invoked  his  protection.  He  directed  his  militia 
generals  to  repress  disorder  and  check  any  attack 
on  the  town.  Interviews  were  held  with  the  free- 
State  commanders,  and  the  situation  was  fully  dis- 
cussed. A  compromise  was  agreed  upon,  and  a 
formal  treaty  written  out  and  signed.  The  affair 
was  pronounced  to  be  a  "  misunderstanding";  the 
Lawrence  party  disavowed  the  Branson  rescue, 
denied  any  previous,  present,  or  prospective  organ- 
ization for  resistance,  and  under  sundry  provisos 
agreed  to  aid  in  the  execution  of  "  the  laws  "  when 
called  upon  by  "  proper  authority."  Like  all  com- 
promises, the  agreement  was  half  necessity,  half 
trick.  Neither  party  was  willing  to  yield  honestly  nor 
ready  to  fight  manfully.  The  free-State  men  shrank 
from  forcible  resistance  to  even  bogus  laws.  The 
Missouri  cabal,  on  the  other  hand,  having  three  of 
their  best  men  constantly  at  the  Governor's  side, 
were  compelled  to  recognize  their  lack  of  justifica- 
tion. They  did  not  dare  to  ignore  upon  what  a 
ridiculously  shadowy  pretext  the  Branson  peace- 


CIVIL    WAR    IN    KANSAS  447 

warrant  had  grown  into  an  army  of  two  thousand  ch.xxv. 
men,  and  how,  under  the  manipulation  of  Sheriff 
Jones,  a  questionable  affidavit  of  a  pro-slavery 
criminal  had  been  expanded  into  the  casus  belli 
of  a  free-State  town.  They  consented  to  a  com- 
promise "  to  cover  a  retreat." 

When  Governor  Shannon  announced  that  the 
difficulties  were  settled,  the  people  of  Lawrence 
were  suspicious  of  their  leaders,  and  John  Brown 
manifested  his  readiness  to  head  a  revolt.  But  his 
attempted  speech  was  hushed  down,  and  the  assur- 
ance of  Robinson  and  Lane  that  they  had  made  no 
dishonorable  concession  finally  quieted  their  follow- 
ers. There  were  similar  murmurs  in  the  pro-slavery 
camps.  The  Governor  was  denounced  as  a  traitor, 
and  Sheriff  Jones  declared  that  "  he  would  have 
wiped  out  Lawrence."  Atchison,  on  the  contrary, 
sustained  the  bargain,  explaining  that  to  attack 
Lawrence  under  the  circumstances  would  ruin  the 
Democratic  cause.  "  But,"  he  added  with  a  sig- 
nificant oath,  "  boys,  we  will  fight  some  time ! " 
Thirteen  of  the  captains  in  the  Wakarusa  camp 
were  called  together,  and  the  situation  was  duly 
explained.  The  treaty  was  accepted,  though  the 
Governor  confessed  "  there  was  a  silent  dissatis- 
faction "  at  the  result.  He  ordered  the  forces  to  shannon  to 
disband ;  prisoners  were  liberated,  and  with  the  pierce,  De- 
opportune  aid  of  a  furious  rain-storm  the  Border-  1855.  senate 

-XT  i-L         Ex.  Doc.,  3d 

Ruffian  army  gradually  melted  away.     r4evertne-    sess.  34th 
less  the  "Wakarusa  war  "left  one  bitter  sting  to     ii-pp- 
rankle  in  the  hearts  of  the  defenders  of  Lawrence, 
a  free-State  man  having  been  killed  by  a  pro- 
slavery  scouting  party. 

The  truce  patched  up  by  this  Lawrence  treaty 


448  ABRAHAM    LINCOLN  " 

ch.  XXV.  was  of  comparatively  short  duration.  The  excite- 
ment which  had  reigned  in  Kansas  during  the 
whole  summer  of  1855,  first  about  the  enactments 
of  the  bogus  Legislature,  and  then  in  regard  to  the 
formation  of  the  Topeka  Constitution,  was  now 
extended  to  the  American  Congress,  where  it  raged 
for  two  long  months  over  the  election  of  Speaker 
Banks.  In  Kansas  during  the  same  period  the  vote 
of  the  free-State  men  upon  the  Topeka  Constitution 
and  the  election  for  free-State  officers  under  it,  kept 
the  Territory  in  a  ferment.  During  and  after  the 
contest  over  the  speakership  at  Washington,  each 
State  Legislature  became  a  forum  of  Kansas  debate. 
The  general  public  interest  in  the  controversy  was 
shown  by  discussions  carried  on  by  press,  pulpit, 
and  in  the  daily  conversation  and  comment  of  the 
people  of  the  Union  in  every  town,  hamlet,  and 
neighborhood.  No  sooner  did  the  spring  weather 
of  1856  permit,  than  men,  money,  arms,  and  sup- 
plies were  poured  into  the  Territory  of  Kansas  from 
the  North. 

In  the  Southern  States  also  this  propagandism 
was  active,  and  a  number  of  guerrilla  leaders  with 
followers  recruited  in  the  South,  and  armed  and 
sustained  by  Southern  contributions  and  appro- 
priations, found  their  way  to  Kansas  in  response 
to  urgent  appeals  of  the  Border  chiefs.  Buford,  of 
Alabama;  Titus,  of  Florida;  Wilkes,  of  Virginia; 
Hampton,  of  Kentucky;  Treadwell,  of  South  Caro- 
lina, and  others,  brought  not  only  enthusiastic 
leadership,  but  substantial  assistance.  Both  the 
factions  which  had  come  so  near  to  actual  battle 
in  the  "Wakarusa  war,"  though  nominally  dis- 
banded, in  reality  continued  their  military  organ- 


CIVIL    WAE    IN    KANSAS  449 

izations, — the  free-State  men  through  apprehension  ch.  xxv. 
of  danger,  the  Border  Ruffians  because  of  their 
purpose  to  crush  out  opposition.  Strengthened  on 
both  sides  with  men,  money,  arms,  and  supplies, 
the  contest  was  gradually  resumed  with  the  open- 
ing spring. 

The  vague  and  double-meaning  phrases  of  the 
Lawrence  agreement  furnished  the  earliest  causes 
of  a  renewal  of  the  quarrel.  "  Did  you  not  pledge 
yourselves  to  assist  me  as  sheriff  in  the  arrest  of 
any  person  against  whom  I  might  have  a  writ  ? " 
asked  Sheriff  Jones  of  Robinson  and  Lane  in  a 
curt  note.  "We  may  have  said  that  we  would  j.n. hoUo- 
assist  any  proper  officer  in  the  service  of  any  legal  to^yoi' iSn* 
process,"  they  replied,  standing  upon  their  inter-  ^m,  27^?' 
pretation.  This  was,  of  course,  the  original  con- 
troversy— slavery  burning  to  enforce  her  usurpa- 
tion, freedom  determined  to  defend  her  birthright. 
Sheriff  Jones  had  his  pockets  always  full  of  writs 
issued  in  the  spirit  of  persecution,  but  was  often 
baffled  by  the  sharp  wits  and  ready  resources  of 
the  free-State  people,  and  sometimes  defied  out- 
right. Little  by  little,  however,  the  latter  became 
hemmed  and  bound  in  the  meshes  of  the  various 
devices  and  proceedings  which  the  territorial  offi- 
cials evolved  from  the  bogus  laws.  President 
Pierce,  in  his  special  message  of  January  24,  issc. 
declared  what  had  been  done  by  the  Topeka  move- 
ment to  be  "  of  a  revolutionary  character "  which 
would  "  become  treasonable  insurrection  if  it  reach 
the  length  of  organized  resistance." 

Following  this  came  his  proclamation  of  Febru- 
ary 11,  leveled  against  "combinations  formed  to       ism. 
resist  the  execution  of  the  territorial  laws."    Early 

Vol.  L— 29 


450 


ABKAHAM    LINCOLN 


ch.  XXV,  in  May,  Chief- Justice  Lecompte  held  a  term  of  his 
court,  during  which  he  delivered  to  the  grand  jury 
his  famous  instructions  on  constructive  treason. 
Indictments  were  found,  writs  issued,  and  the  prin- 
cipal free- State  leaders  arrested  or  forced  to  flee 
from  the  Territory.  Governor  Robinson  was  ar- 
rested without  warrant  on  the  Missouri  River,  and 
brought  back  to  be  held  in  military  custody  till 
September.^  Lane  went  East  and  recruited  addi- 
tional help  for  the  contest.  Meanwhile  Sheriff 
Jones,  sitting  in  his  tent  at  night,  in  the  town  of 
Lawrence,  had  been  wounded  by  a  rifle  or  pistol 
in  the  attempt  of  some  unknown  person  to  assas- 
sinate him.  The  people  of  Lawrence  denounced 
the  deed ;  but  the  sheriff  hoarded  up  the  score  for 
future  revenge.    One  additional  incident  served  to 


1  Governor  Robinson  being  on 
his  way  East,  the  steamboat  on 
which  he  was  traveling  stopped 
at  Lexington,  Missouri.  An 
unauthorized  mob  induced  the 
Governor,  with  that  persuasive- 
ness in  which  the  Border  Ruf- 
fians had  become  adepts,  to  leave 
the  boat,  detaining  him  at  Lex- 
ington on  the  accusation  that 
he  was  fleeing  from  an  indict- 
ment. In  a  few  days  an  officer 
came  with  a  requisition  from 
Governor  Shannon,  and  took  the 
prisoner  by  land  to  Westport,  and 
afterwards  from  there  to  Kansas 
City  and  Leavenworth.  Here  he 
was  placed  in  the  custody  of  Cap- 
tain Martin,  of  the  Kickapoo 
Rangers,  who  proved  a  kind 
jailer,  and  materially  assisted  in 
protecting  him  from  the  danger- 
ous intentions  of  the  mob  which 
at  that  time  held  Leavenworth 
under  a  reign  of  terror. 

Mrs.  Robinson,  who  has  kindly 


sent  us  a  sketch  of  the  incident, 
writes :  "  On  the  night  of  the  28th 
[of  May]  for  greater  security 
General  Richardson  of  the  mili- 
tia slept  in  the  same  bed  with  the 
prisoner,  while  Judge  Lecompte 
and  Marshal  Donaldson  slept 
just  outside  of  the  door  of  the 
prisoner's  room.  Captain  Martin 
said :  '  I  shall  give  you  a  pistol 
to  help  protect  yourself  with  if 
worse  comes  to  worst!'  In  the 
early  morning  of  the  next  day. 
May  29,  a  company  of  dragoons 
with  one  empty  saddle  came  down 
from  the  fort,  and  while  the  pro- 
slavery  men  still  slept,  the  pris- 
oner and  his  escort  were  on  their 
way  across  the  prairies  to  Le- 
compton  in  the  charge  of  officers 
of  the  United  States  Army.  The 
Governor  and  other  prisoners 
were  kept  on  the  prairie  near 
Lecompton  until  the  10th  of 
September,  1856,  when  all  were 
released." 


CIVIL    WAR    IN    KANSAS  451 

precipitate  the  crisis.  The  House  of  Representa-  ch.xxv. 
tives  at  Washington,  presided  over  by  Speaker 
Banks,  and  under  control  of  the  opposition,  sent 
an  investigating  committee  to  Kansas,  consisting 
of  Wm.  A.  Howard,  of  Michigan,  John  Sherman,^ 
of  Ohio,  and  Mordecai  Oliver,  of  Missouri,  which, 
by  the  examination  of  numerous  witnesses,  was 
probing  the  Border-Euffian  invasions,  the  illegality 
of  the  bogus  Legislature,  and  the  enormity  of  the 
bogus  laws  to  the  bottom. 

Ex-Governor  Reeder  was  in  attendance  on  this 
committee,  supplying  data,  pointing  out  from  per- 
sonal knowledge  sources  of  information,  cross- 
examining  witnesses  to  elicit  the  hidden  truth.  Howard 
To  embarrass  this  damaging  exposure,  Judge  ^p^'ST' 
Lecompte  issued  a  writ  against  the  ex-Govei'nor 
on  a  frivolous  charge  of  contempt.  Claiming  but 
not  receiving  exemption  from  the  committee, 
Reeder  on  his  personal  responsibility  refused  to 
permit  the  deputy  marshal  to  arrest  him.  The 
incident  was  not  violent,  nor  even  dramatic.  No 
posse  was  summoned,  no  further  effort  made,  and 
Reeder,  fearing  personal  violence,  soon  fled  in  dis- 
guise. But  the  affair  was  magnified  as  a  crowning 
proof  that  the  free-State  men  were  insurrectionists 
and  outlaws. 

It  must  be  noted  in  passing  that  by  this  time 
the  Territory  had  by  insensible  degrees  drifted  into 
the  condition  of  civil  war.  Both  parties  were 
zealous,   vigilant,    and    denunciatory.     In    nearly 

1  Owing  to  the  illness  of  Mr.  Its  methodical  analysis  and  pow- 

Howard,  chairman  of  the  com-  erful    presentation    of    evidence 

mittee,    the  long  and  elaborate  made  it  one  of  the  most  popular 

majority  report  of  this  committee  and    convincing    political   docu- 

was  written  by  John   Sherman,  ments  ever  issued. 


452  ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

ch.xxv.  every  settlement  suspicion  led  to  combination  for 
defense,  combination  to  some  form  of  oppression 
or  insult,  and  so  on  by  easy  transition  to  arrest 
and  concealment,  attack  and  reprisal,  expul- 
sion, theft,  house-burning,  capture,  and  murder. 
From  these,  again,  sprang  barricaded  and  fortified 
dwellings,  camps  and  scouting  parties,  finally  cul- 
minating in  roving  guerrilla  bands,  half  partisan, 
half  predatory.  Their  distinctive  characters,  how- 
ever, display  one  broad  and  unfailing  difference. 
The  free- State  men  clung  to  their  prairie  towns 
and  prairie  ravines  with  all  the  obstinacy  and 
courage  of  true  defenders  of  their  homes  and  fire- 
sides. The  pro-slavery  parties,  unmistakable  aliens 
and  invaders,  always  came  from,  or  retired  across, 
the  Missouri  line.  Organized  and  sustained  in  the 
beginning  by  voluntary  contributions  from  that 
and  distant  States,  they  ended  by  levying  forced 
contributions,  by  "  pressing"  horses,  food,  or  arms 
from  any  neighborhood  they  chanced  to  visit. 
Their  assumed  character  changed  with  their  chang- 
ing opportunities  or  necessities.  They  were  squads 
of  Kansas  militia,  companies  of  "peaceful  emi- 
grants," or  gangs  of  irresponsible  outlaws,  to  suit 
the  chance,  the  whim,  or  the  need  of  the  moment. 

Since  the  unsatisfactory  termination  of  the 
"  Wakarusa  war,"  certain  leaders  of  the  conspir- 
acy had  never  given  up  their  project  of  punishing 
the  town  of  Lawrence.  A  propitious  moment  for 
carrying  it  out  seemed  now  to  have  arrived.  The 
free-State  officers  and  leaders  were,  thanks  to 
Judge  Lecompte's  doctrine  of  constructive  treason, 
under  indictment,  arrest,  or  in  flight;  the  settlers 
were  busy  with  their  spring  crops ;  while  the  pro- 


CIVIL    WAE    IN    KANSAS 


453 


slavery  guerrillas,  freshly  arrived  and  full  of  zeal, 
were  eager  for  service  and  distinction.  The  former 
campaign  against  the  town  had  failed  for  want  of 
justification ;  they  now  sought  a  pretext  which 
would  not  shame  their  assumed  character  as  de- 
fenders of  law  and  order.  In  the  shooting  of 
Sheriff  Jones  in  Lawrence,  and  in  the  refusal  of 
ex-Governor  Reeder  to  allow  the  deputy-marshal 
to  arrest  him,  they  discovered  grave  offenses 
against  the  territorial  and  United  States  laws. 
Determined  also  no  longer  to  trust  Grovernor 
Shannon,  lest  he  might  again  make  peace,  United 
States  Marshal  Donaldson  issued  a  proclamation  on 
his  own  responsibility,  on  May  11,  1856,  command- 
ing "law-abiding  citizens  of  the  Territory"  "to  be 
and  appear  at  Lecompton,  as  soon  as  practicable 
and  in  numbers  sufficient  for  the  proper  execu- 
tion of  the  law."  Moving  with  the  promptness  and 
celerity  of  preconcerted  plans,  ex- Vice-President 
Atchison,  with  his  Platte  County  Eifles  and  two 
brass  cannon,  the  Kickapoo  Rangers  from  Leaven- 
worth and  "Weston,  Wilkes,  Titus,  Buford,  and  all 
the  rest  of  the  free  lances  in  the  Territory,  began  to 
concentrate  against  Lawrence,  giving  the  marshal 
in  a  very  few  days  a  "  posse  "  of  from  500  to  800 
men,  armed  for  the  greater  part  with  United  States 
muskets,  some  stolen  from  the  Liberty  arsenal  on 
their  former  raid,  others  distributed  to  them  as 
Kansas  militia  by  the  territorial  officers.  The 
Governor  refused  to  interfere  to  protect  the  threat- 
ened town,  though  an  urgent  appeal  to  do  so  was 
made  to  him  by  its  citizens,  who  after  stormy  and 
divided  councils  resolved  on  a  policy  of  non-re- 
sistance. 


Ch.  XXV. 


Memorial, 

Seuate  Ex. 

Doc,  3d 

Sess.  34th 
Cong.  Vol. 

II.,  p.  74. 


Pbillips, 
pp.  289-90. 


Memorial, 
Senate 

Ex.  Doc., 
3d  Hess. 

34th  Cong. 

Vol.  II., 

p.  75. 


454  ABRAHA3I    LINCOLN 

ch.  XXV.       They  next  made  application  to  the  marshal,  who 

tauntingly  replied  that  he  could  not  rely  on  their 

Senate  e\'.   pledges,  and  must  take  the  liberty  to  execute  his 

8e88."34th    process  in  his  own  time  and  manner.    The  help  of 

Cong.  Vol.     ^  ,  ^ 

II.,  p.  77.  Colonel  Sumner,  commanding  the  United  States 
troops,  was  finally  invoked,  but  his  instructions 
only  permitted  him  to  act  at  the  call  of  the  Gov- 
ernor or  marshal.^  Private  persons  who  had  leased 
the  Free-State  Hotel  vainly  besought  the  various 
authorities  to  prevent  the  destruction  of  their 
property.  Ten  days  were  consumed  in  these  ne- 
gotiations ;  but  the  spirit  of  vengeance  refused  to 
yield.  When  the  citizens  of  Lawrence  rose  on  the 
21st  of  May  they  beheld  their  town  invested  by  a 
formidable  military  force. 

During  the  forenoon  the  deputy-marshal  rode 
leisurely  into  the  town  attended  by  less  than  a 
dozen  men,  being  neither  molested  nor  opposed. 
He  summoned  half  a  dozen  citizens  to  join  his 
posse,  who  followed,  obeyed,  and  assisted  him. 
He  continued  his  pretended  search  and,  to  give 
color  to  his  errand,  made  two  arrests.  The  Free- 
State  Hotel,  a  stone  building  in  dimensions  fifty 
by  seventy  feet,  three  stories  high  and  hand- 
somely furnished,  previously  occupied  only  for 
lodging-rooms,  on  that  day  for  the  first  time  opened 
its  table  accommodations  to  the  public,  and  pro- 
vided a  free  dinner  in  honor  of  the  occasion. 
The  marshal  and  his  posse,  including  Sheriff 
Jones,  went  among  other  invited  guests  and 
enjoyed  the  proffered  hospitality.  As  he  had 
promised  to  protect  the  hotel,  the  reassured  citi- 

1  Sumner  to  Shannon,  May  12,  1856.     Senate  Ex.  Doc,  No.  10, 
Sd  Sess.  34th  Cong.    Vol.  V,,  p.  7. 


CIVIL    WAR    IN    KANSAS  455 

zens  began  to  laugh  at  their  own  fears.     To  their    ch.  xxv. 
sorrow  they  were  soon  undeceived.    The  military 
force,  partly  rabble,  partly  organized,  had  mean- 
while moved  into  the  town. 

To  save  his  official  skirts  from  stain,  the  deputy- 
marshal  now  went  through  the  farce  of  dismissing 
his  entire  posse  of  citizens  and  Border  Ruffians,  at 
which  juncture  Sheriff  Jones  made  his  appearance, 
claiming  the  "posse "as  his  own.  He  planted  a 
company  before  the  hotel,  and  demanded  a  sur- 
render of  the  arms  belonging  to  the  free-State 
military  companies.  Refusal  or  resistance  being 
out  of  the  question,  half  a  dozen  small  cannon 
were  solemnly  dug  up  from  their  concealment 
and,  together  with  a  few  Sharps  rifles,  form- 
ally delivered.  Half  an  hour  later,  tm^ning  a 
deaf  ear  to  all  remonstrance,  he  gave  the  pro- 
prietors until  5  o'clock  to  remove  their  families 
and  personal  property  from  the  Free-State  Hotel. 
Atchison,  who  had  been  haranguing  the  mob, 
planted  his  two  guns  before  the  building  and 
trained  them  upon  it.  The  inmates  being  removed, 
at  the  appointed  hour  a  few  cannon  balls  were  fired 
through  the  stone  walls.  This  mode  of  destruction 
being  slow  and  undramatic,  and  an  attempt  to  blow 
it  up  with  gunpowder  having  proved  equally  un- 
satisfactory, the  torch  was  applied,  and  the  struc- 
ture given  to  the  flames.^  Other  squads  had  during 
the  same  time  been  sent  to  the  several  printing- 
offices,  where  they  broke  the  presses,  scattered  the 
type,  and  demohshed  the  furniture.  The  house  of 
Governor  Robinson  was  also  robbed  and  burned. 

1  Memorial,  Senate  Executive  Document,  3d  Session  34th 
Congress.     Vol.  II.,  pp.  73-85. 


456 


ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 


Ch.  XXV. 


House  Re- 
ports, 2d 
8es8.  36tli 
Cong.,  Vol. 
III.,  part  I., 
p.  39. 


HoUoway, 
p.  331. 


Memorial 

to  the 
President. 


Very  soon  tlie  mob  was  beyond  all  control,  and 
spreading  itself  over  the  town  engaged  in  pillage 
till  the  darkness  of  night  arrested  it.  Meanwhile 
the  chiefs  sat  on  their  horses  and  viewed  the  work 
of  destruction. 

If  we  would  believe  the  chief  actors,  this  was 
the  "  law  and  order  party,"  executing  the  mandates 
of  justice.  Part  and  parcel  of  the  affair  was  the 
pretense  that  this  exploit  of  prairie  buccaneering 
had  been  authorized  by  Judge  Lecompte's  coui't, 
the  officials  citing  in  their  defense  a  presentment 
of  his  grand  jury,  declaring  the  free-State  news- 
papers seditious  publications,  and  the  Free-State 
Hotel  a  rebellious  fortification,  and  recommend- 
ing theu'  abatement  as  nuisances.  The  travesty  of 
American  government  involved  in  the  transaction 
is  too  serious  for  ridicule.  In  this  incident,  con- 
trasting the  creative  and  the  destructive  spirit  of 
the  factions,  the  Emigrant  Aid  Society  of  Massa- 
chusetts finds  its  most  honorable  and  triumphant 
vindication.  The  whole  proceeding  was  so  child- 
ish, the  miserable  plot  so  transparent,  the  outrage 
so  gross,  as  to  bring  disgust  to  the  better  class  of 
Border  Euffians  who  were  witnesses  and  acces- 
sories. The  free-State  men  have  recorded  the 
honorable  conduct  of  Colonel  Zadock  Jackson,  of 
Georgia,  and  Colonel  Jefferson  Buf ord,  of  Alabama, 
as  well  as  of  the  prosecuting  attorney  of  the  county, 
each  of  whom  denounced  the  proceedings  on  the 
spot. 


END  OP  VOL.   I. 


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